Come with Me

Jan. 25, 2015                           

Mark 1:14-20

Story: "There will be a meeting of the Board immediately after worship," announced the pastor. After the close of worship, the group gathered at the back of the sanctuary for the announced meeting. But there was a stranger in their midst. He was a visitor who had never attended their church before. "My friend," asked the pastor, did you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?" "Yes," said the visitor, "and after that sermon, I'm about as bored as you can get!"

Prayer

Last week I told you that I would be having a 2 part sermon… last week was about the invitation… “Come and See”.

I left you with 2 questions to ponder.

     What is your favorite thing about Cana and the life we share here?

     Would you be willing to invite someone to come and see this favorite thing about Cana?

Have you considered these questions?  Did you invite anyone?

Our gospel story from Mark is an incredible… 4 guys by all appearances give up everything to go with Jesus. Jesus says, “Come with Me.” Vs 18… “Right then, they dropped everything and went with him.” Some translations say, And immediately they left everything and followed Jesus. With emphasis on the word “Immediately”.

Can you imagine doing this? Leaving everything behind to follow a guy you’ve never met and at best have only heard about. I can tell you… I couldn’t do that. I can tell you when I heard God’s call to become a pastor… it took me 2 years to discern and figure out, and almost another year to get rid of stuff.

Does that mean we are failures because we didn’t drop everything at that moment and followed? Does it mean we are less faithful than Andrew, Peter, James, and John?

Well… in the coming chapters… Mark will show us these guys aren’t all that stellar either.

Each of us must follow Jesus for ourselves. You may never have to face the decision of whether or not to die for your faith, but every day you face the decision of whether or not you will live for it.

A quotation from the book Jesus Freaks

So… when Jesus asks, “Come with Me”

What Does This Mean?

1. Are you interested in the Invitation?

Last week… Philip asked Nathanael to “Come & See” So… I asked “Come and See”  Come and See this Jesus among us. This Jesus who can teach us… comfort us… bring healing to our spirit. Come and See Jesus… talk with Him… Listen to Him… See His work. Begin to put your faith in Him… drop the defenses, un chock the wheels.

2. Listening to the Noise

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom is both “fulfilled” and “Yet” coming. There is always a time and a place that Jesus invites. It’s a spiritual time or “Kairos” time and it’s a chronological or “Chronos” time… and time is not specific to either. Kairos time is more spiraling and undefined… Chronos time is more defined and straight. Life isn’t always linear nor spiraling.

The most powerful straight line winds ever recorded blew across Mt. Washington, NH at 190 mph and recorded cyclone winds in tornado alley have been clocked at 300 mph.

So… we live in the tension of 2 worlds… we can feel the presence of God and the pull of the world. So… there is a time of waiting & listening.

3.Trust and Faith

Jesus’ 1^st followers were just average guys… some might say otherwise… but they were just guys who went to work every day believing God would sustain them through their work. I believe Mark’s depiction of these guys leaving it all behind is inspiring.. not so much as to drop it all and follow… but if they were willing to follow Jesus… then Jesus would somehow take care of their needs.

When I decided to work toward becoming a pastor I needed both college and seminary. I didn’t know how I was going to do that… the time… 8 years… and the cost. On paper it didn’t look like I could do it. But I knew it was the time and I knew I needed to do it. I needed to put my money where my mouth was. If I trusted in God’ provision it would work… and here I am. If we are to follow… we are to trust in Jesus.

4. Gifts and Passions

Jesus’ friends were simple guys doing everyday work. They were fishermen… carpenters… tax accts…. Housewives… etc. They were living out the kind of work they were good at… what they were gifted to do… and maybe not. You don’t have to go to seminary to do God’s work. We Lutheran’s have messed up the priesthood of all believers into thinking you need to be credentialed in something in order to serve.

I believe we can be followers of Jesus by being a teacher… a welder… a construction worker… a nurse… a server at a restaurant. You can follow Jesus by being a volunteer at a senior center. You can follow Jesus by being a police officer… firefighter… a cook or custodian… a medical tech… a lawyer… a business owner… or homemaker.

Maybe you love what you’re doing or maybe not so much… but your contributing towards others well-being. I think you get the point… you don’t need to be a pastor or church worker to follow Jesus. The fact is it’s probably better you’re not… you see you can follow Jesus in any number of ways. The point here is to follow Jesus by imitating Him and to treat others with the same respect, love, patience, and care as he would. And if the work you do is what your gifted at… all the better.

5. A Commitment to Love.

Lastly… to commit to embrace the values of love and forgiveness and inclusiveness as Jesus did. Jesus says in John 13,“we are to love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus demonstrates how we are to love and forgive, and invite. At the heart of following is “Being” a Christian NOT “Becoming” a Christian.

When we make this commitment… we are invited into and promised a faith community by the grace of God, apart from ourselves. And this is something we all live into because it’s not always easy to love and forgive people. The cool thing is… the invitation is always present.

Closing:

In the end… we are invited to “Come & See”  then follow… to go with… to “Come with Me” as Jesus says… So that we might experience and live into his promise and benefit more fully from the identity of Jesus’ life. Not about being better followers… but rather knowing and experiencing Jesus more deeply.

Come and See

Jan. 18, 2015                                                                                                

John 1:43-51

Story: Moses, Jesus and an old man went golfing. Moses teed off, and his ball went down a waterway, the water parted, and the ball rolled across within four inches of the cup.

Jesus then teed off, and the ball hit near the water, skipped across on top of it and came within two inches of the cup.

The old man teed off next, and the ball went crooked, hit a tree and bounced. A squirrel picked it up and ran with it across the green. An eagle swooped down, caught the squirrel, flew high up into a thunderstorm and got struck by lighting, which made him drop the squirrel. The squirrel dropped the ball, which hit a terrapin and rolled into the cup.

Jesus said, 'Nice shot, Dad.'

--Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler, eds., Hometown Humor, USA. Over 300 Jokes and Stories From the Porch Swings, Barber Shops, Corner Cafes, and Beauty Parlors of America (Little Rock, Ark.: August House, 1991), 128.

Prayer

This is going to be a 2 part sermon. There are a few instances in our lectionary that lend themselves to a series or multiple parts. This is one of those instances.

So… today is Part 1 and it is the Invitation…. “Come and See”

Next week….and I hope you come back… is the Commitment… “Come with Me”

As I’ve said previously about the stories in John’s gospel… they seem to be about regular people encountering the real Jesus. Meaning… these are real stories of just regular people. And these encounters really make us think about how we perceive the real Jesus.

They’re stories of real people who encounter the real Jesus on their own terms and these people aren’t the sort of people we would normally associate Jesus with. They’re just average people living life and trying to do the right thing. Yet… Jesus seems to time and again invite them to come and see.

To come and see what he is all about.

To come and see if indeed he is the real Messiah.

           To come and see if their lives can be different.

Have you ever tried to win an argument?  Sure we all have… Often it rarely works out like we think. Even when we know we are right… even with all the facts on our side… we’ve still have not won. Oh… maybe for the moment… but all to often while we’ve won… we’ve lost by harming the relationship we’ve had with the other person all in the glory of being right.

Much like our story today with Philip… Philip had all the facts he knew Jesus was the one… the Messiah. Philip knew he had the trump card and could trump Nathanael’s snarkey remark. Rather than doing all of that… Philip just invites Nathanael to “Come and See.” There was no coercing… no threats… no facts… no eternal banishment. Just an invitation to “Come and See.”

Former ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson in his January 2003, “The Lutheran” magazine article says,

“ Come and see. How joyfully and spontaneously a child interrupts a parent with the urgent invitation to come and see. With delight, we go and see the child’s creation — a drawing, sand castle, Lego house. With words of praise, we see their latest accomplishment — balancing on a skateboard, mastering a piano piece, pouring their own juice ....

Come and see. Why does that simple, clear invitation become so disturbing, so difficult to extend? The invitation to see Jesus has an urgency about it that many of us find uncomfortable, if not impossible, to convey. 

Come and see Jesus. It’s not an invitation to observe Jesus from afar. Rather, it’s the call to share in his sufferings, to entrust one’s whole life to the promise that this one is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Come and see Jesus is the invitation to live by faith and to be turned toward our neighbor. It’s the invitation to come and die, to lay down one’s life for the sake of the gospel and the neighbor.”

-—Mark S. Hanson, “Come and see Jesus.” Reprinted with permission from The Lutheran, January 2003 issue, copyright 2003, Augsburg Fortress.

We Lutheran’s need to awaken the grace DNA in us and invite others to “Come and See,” and experience the difference Jesus makes in our lives. This is the gift of the church… not because we need to improve the building… or programs… or the bottom line. We need to invite because of the need to be healed and freed by the grace of God.

CLOSING:

I would like to leave you with 2 questions to consider.

What is your favorite thing about Cana and the life we share here

What is it that draws you here and why you stay?

What’s so fantastic about this place that brings you back week after wk?

Would you be willing to invite someone to Come and See this favorite thing about Cana?

We do this all the time… we share with excitement the things we love. My favorite seafood restaurant is the Sun Set Café on Cocoa Beach. They have to die for crab legs. They are the largest, sweetest, and you get a lot of them for a small price. We always share what we love because we want people to know about it… and we readily share. Remember… it’s only an invitation… you don’t have to sell it… that’s not your job… leave that to the Holy Spirit.

My friends… the invitation to Come and See is the future of the faith community, and it rests on our willingness to invite others to share and experience what we’ve already found…. That being Jesus.

Not our buildings… as wonderful as they are.

Not our programs… and

Not the bottom line.

We need to invite because people need to experience the grace and love of Jesus.

That was the spirit in which inspired Philip and Andrew to invite Peter and Nathanael to Come and See…

It’s the same Spirit that will empower all of us to invite others to Come and See too.

Moving Into the Neighborhood

Jan 4, 2015                                                                                       

John 1:1-18

 

A couple of weeks before Christmas, an elderly man in Phoenix telephoned his adult son in New York. He said, “Son, your mother and I have been married for 40 years, and I just wanted to call and tell you that we’ve decided to get a divorce.” 

His son was aghast. He said, “Dad, that’s terrible! Don’t you and Mother do a thing until I’ve had a chance to come and talk to you. I’ll be on the next plane to Phoenix!” 

They hung up, and the son called his sister in Chicago. He said, “Sis, Dad just called. He told me that he and Mom are getting a divorce.”

His sister said, “Like heck they are! I’ll meet you in Phoenix, and we’ll talk some sense into them.” 

She hung up and immediately telephoned her father. She said, “Dad, brother just called me and told me that, after 40 years of marriage, you and Mom have decided to get a divorce. Don’t you do a thing until I’ve had a chance to talk with you. I’ll be on the next plane to Phoenix.” 

Her father hung up, turned to his wife, and said, “Honey, both kids are going to be home for Christmas, and they’re paying their own way!”

Prayer

VIDEO: Amena Brown

I love this video from Amena Brown, it not only tells the story of God based on our gospel story, but goes on to describe what God does for humanity. I especially like the part when she says, “The word became flesh, but moved into the neighborhood.”

I also like John’s gospel for it’s refreshing look at how God interacts with people. The story’s seem to be more complete and poignant our human story… not that the other gospels don’t… but John’s seems to do this better for me. Look at the Wedding Feast… The Samaritan Woman… Nicodemus… The Feeding of the Thousands… Lazarus…  For me… the stories in John seem to have a personal aspect to them and in my view so does our story today. For me… this story is where the fairy-tale of faith ends and the flesh and blood reality of my faith begins. It’s where my identity as a Jesus follower draws its roots and the messiness of life meets the light of the world.

As David Lose says, “Christmas reminds us of God’s decision to become one of us, to take on our lot and our life that we might have hope, and to share our mortal life that we might enjoy God’s.” 

So… for me… our story from John’s gospel puts flesh and bones on my faith.

I remember when I was on internship I had to do a children’s message on this story. It didn’t go well… I mean how do you tell 3-6 year olds the Word was God… the Word was in the world… the Word became flesh? And being in an academic frame of mind… well this didn’t impress to many people.

So… what is God saying to us today?

While I’m not the brightest rock in the pile… I’d like to believe I’ve learned a couple of things over the past 10 years of being a pastor. So… kids… let’s give it a try… OK!

John is writing from a cave on the island of Patmos off the coast of Ephesus (modern day Turkey) around the year 90. He’s the only living witness to Jesus left of which there are very few of his generation left. John is writing to a Christian Community who has forgotten the identity of Jesus. This group is much more ethnically diverse & includes people who have Jewish, Samaritan, & Greek backgrounds, and this community is arguing about the identity of Jesus.

Some are claiming Jesus was not who he said he was… and that he was not the Messiah. Others are saying Jesus was not really from God, nor that he was one with God. Perhaps, this sounds familiar… we hear this a lot even today. Maybe some of you have thought this way. So… John… the last living eye witness to the real Jesus is writing to the church saying… “Jesus is the real deal.”

Therefore, John starts his gospel, not with the birth of Jesus as Matt & Luke do, and not with the baptism of Jesus as Mark does, but at the beginning of it all…. John is taking us back to the creation of it all.

In the Beginning

“In the beginning was God”…. John does this to remind the faith community he’s writing to as well as us today that Jesus goes back to the beginning and that this is the foundation of faith. Gen 1:26… God says, “Let Us make humans in our image, and in our likeness.” So John starts with the Word that was God and was with God as a means to communicate with this faith community that they have forgotten what is most important. And John gospel is fitting for us as well… because in many ways we have forgotten what is most important as well.

And We See this as God Working thru Humanity Vs 6… “God sends a man named John to tell about the light.” John is the Baptist shows up proclaiming someone is coming… So John… our gospel writer wants us to see that God is using others to proclaim what God is going to do.

God sends you & me to do this as well. Most of us dismiss this…. Most of us can’t believe God would use me. Most of us don’t see how God could use us… we’re nobody special. Look around you… I see smiles from people that you help… I see tears of joy on you when you are the face of God to someone. I see the gifts and passions you have. I see your faces when someone not part of this community gives a complete Thanksgiving Dinner to help a family in need. Because of this proclamation… John says in Vs 12…”Some of you put your faith in Him.”

Of course for me the cool part is God Moved into the Neighborhood.

Vs 14… God becomes human & lives with us.

God moved into the neighborhood.  Did anyone see the movie Avatar?… Jake a paralyzed ex-marine learns of a mission to a distant newly discovered moon of earth that is inhabited by characters called Na’vi.

To get to this place he has to become a Na’vi… in order to do this he must make an Avatar of himself to be like them. The government has MRI type machines that re-make you into an Avatar Na’vi character which takes you into the Na’vi world. Reality & the virtual worlds are meshed so convincingly no one can tell the difference. In the end… the movie is about good & evil.

In the movie… Jake sort of becomes a Christ figure… Jake comes from another world into the Na’vi world and becomes one of them. He spends time with them… eats what they eat…drinks what they drink, and loves them. Jake then sacrifices himself to save the Na’vi people. Evil is defeated and the Na’vi people live.

Like-wise God became one of us in the person of Jesus. God thru Jesus ate & drank… suffered… experience our pain… and loved us. God thru Jesus became intimately involved in our lives. This is what we have just proclaimed & celebrated over the past couple of weeks… “Emmanuel”… “GOD WITH US”

Close with a story from Jamie Clark-Soles… “If the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, if the Word of God came out of the birth canal of a woman’s body, grew, ate, went to the bathroom, sometimes bathed, struggled against demons, sweated, wept, exulted, transfigured, was physically violated and rotted away in a tomb just before being gloriously resurrected, then the Bible must have flesh on it.

If a valley of dry bones can live again, then bones and blood and bread and flesh and bodies should never be left behind when trying to understand the grime and glory of scripture. Any interpretation that denounces the material, created order, including our own bodies, should be suspect. From birth to death our bodies swell and shrink, are wet with milk, and sweat, and urine and vomit, and sex and blood, and water and wounds that fester and stink and are healed and saved and redeemed and die and are resurrected.

If you can’t glory in or at least talk about these basic realities in church while reading scripture, then haw can scripture truly intersect with or impact life? We might  as well just go and read a Jane Austen novel; though I doubt we’ll ever be transformed or made whole or saved by it.”

As we enter this new week of this New Year in which the Magi come with their gifts and God is revealed once again thru their witness… let’s be open to the newness of the good news that refreshes our hearts and minds, that we too can see God with Us in our community.