Leaving Father Zebedee

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 9: 1-4 and Matthew 4: 12-23 Sermon title: “Leaving Father Zebedee” Preached on January 26, 2020 There are several good questions to ask when you first read this Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew. I think the first one that I ask is, “what was it about Jesus?” These four fishermen – they just stopped and followed. How did they know it was him? How did they know Jesus was someone who was worth following? There are some good explanations. We’re not unfamiliar with the leadership quality called “command presence.” Command presence is this quality, a quality that’s not easy to define exactly – it’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things. Looking back at history - George Washington must have had it. As a man over six feet tall in the late 18th Century he was always the tallest man in the room. He was known to be the best horsemen as well, and when he barked an order most people fell in line – he had command presence. The same could be said of others like General Patton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Jim Speed, or my wife Sara Evans. What was it about Jesus? Was he tall? Was he commanding? Could he persuade a crowd with the truth of his words and the sound of his voice? Dr. Roger Nishioka thinks that it’s something more than that when it comes to Jesus. He was a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary while I was there. He’s a big name in the Presbyterian Church, and in a commentary on this passage Dr. Nishioka quoted his father who said, “We are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other.” What was it then about Jesus? According to Nishioka it is like those newborn baby seals numbering in the hundreds or the thousands on a single beach, these beaches are packed with all these baby seals who all look alike, but as their mothers return from the ocean with their catch the pups find the mothers or the mothers find their pups because from the moment of birth, “the sound and scent of the pup are imprinted in the mother’s memory, and the sound and scent of the mother are imprinted in the pup’s.” Could it be then that even before we are born we are imprinted with the memory of God, so that when we hear his voice we just know to follow? I think that must be how it is, and so, St. Augustine was so bold to write at the beginning of his Confession that “Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” For him, even while his childhood and young adulthood was spent wandering so far that he was at first rendered ineligible for baptism for they said, “He was a great sinner for so small a boy” – still Augustine found no satisfaction in the pleasures of the world, but only found peace by resting in the Lord, for when we hear his voice we hear the call of home. Or to put it as GK Chesterton does in his great poem of Christ’s birth in the manger: There fared a mother driven forth Out of an inn to roam; In the place where she was homeless All men are at home. For men are homesick in their homes, And strangers under the sun, And they lay their heads in a foreign land Whenever the day is done. To an open house in the evening Home shall men come, To an older place than Eden And a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star, To the things that cannot be and that are, To the place where God was homeless And all men are at home. What then did these fishermen see in Jesus as he wandered up the beach? What did they sense in his demeaner? What did they hear in his voice? They heard a voice they had always known but couldn’t place and they saw a man they recognized but whose name they could not remember, for they had always known him and yet they hadn’t met and they knew to follow though they could not have told you why. The words of the Prophet Isaiah that made up our 1st Scripture Lesson is quoted again in the 2nd claiming that seeing him is as “the people who sat in darkness” seeing a great light – “for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” That was Jesus you see, and when you’ve seen him and when you’ve heard him you just know. Meeting him is like looking into the eyes of your new born child – she’s breathing her first breaths and yet you recognize her face somehow. You don’t need explanation – for the truth isn’t so hard to recognize when you hear it. It’s like water to the thirsty, like water to the thirsty who didn’t even know that they were thirsty, for in him is the satisfaction for our deepest need. Bind our wandering hearts to thee, we sing, because our hearts find no rest until they rest in him for we are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other and when we do we will finally be at home. He found those four…. and they followed. Perhaps this is where there is sometimes a difference between them and us. I want to argue that we would have known it was him as they did, because the imprint of our creator is inside us just as it was inside them. We know his voice when we hear it, but the question is: would we have followed? It’s not whether we would have recognized him. You would have and so would I, but would we have followed? Think for a moment about what these fishermen had to leave behind. In becoming his first disciples, what were they willing to give up? Verse 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. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 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. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.” What were they willing to give up? What did they leave behind? Their nets, their livelihood, all that they had known, their trade, their heritage, their people, their home, their family – and poor old father Zebedee is left in that boat. I say that when you hear the voice of God you know it, but are we able to get up and follow? That’s a big part of the challenge of being a Christian today – preachers like me make it too easy. Someone will ask me what are the requirements of church membership and I’m just so glad they’re interested I don’t ask them to do a thing – “Just join the church, please!”. But here’s the truth – if you want a new life in Christ, you must leave the old life behind. In Chapter 10 of Matthew Jesus says it himself, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” What then is the cost of discipleship – what do you have to give up to really follow him? Back in Tennessee, in an African Methodist Episcopal Church we sang about it once. The Presbyterian Church I served there started a relationship with Bethel Chapel AME and for our third joint worship service, the service began with a song that was easy to learn but profound in its message. It went like this: Victory is mine Victory is mine Victory today is mine. I’ll tell Satan Get thee behind Victory today is mine. We sang that until we got it. It took the Presbyterian a little while, but we got it. When we did the Music Director at Bethel Chapel AME changed the words a little bit and we sang: Happiness is mine Happiness is mine Happiness today is mine The part of this hymn that I want to emphasize here which struck me so profoundly is that for happiness to be mine I must “tell Satan, get thee behind.” To inherit the gifts of God To have the joy he intends To follow where he leads, we must leave our nets, leave our old life, maybe even leave our father behind because even the people we love can hold us back from enjoying the majesty of New Life. What becomes clear from this passage from the Gospel of Matthew is that recognizing Jesus is one thing but leaving behind what must be left is another. And perhaps, when you consider how clear Jesus is about the cost, how upfront this story is about what must be left behind, you’ll see that those who are worth following never gloss over the fine print. You remember well the words: “It’s not what this country can do for you – it’s what you can do for this country.” There’s a cost. “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” That’s a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He died in a Nazi Concentration Camp. Why? Because following Jesus is risky. Going along with the crowd is not discipleship. Falling in line with the powers that be is not the same as obedience to the Gospel, for the one we follow was tried, condemned, and crucified by those who would rather maintain their power than hear the truth. This religion of ours; it costs something. Joy is the Father’s intention, but to have it some things must be left behind. What have you been asked to leave behind? Nets. Fathers. Bad habits. Old dreams. Hatred, hypocrisy, appearances, ego, or public opinion. Whatever it is and no matter how hard it is to let go, know this – “this present time [is] not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” So, do not cling too tightly to the present, to what you have, for we have been called by the Savior to something better. Go tell Satan, “get thee behind” for I have heard his voice and I want to follow where he leads. Amen.

Getting Out of the Way

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 49: 1-7 and John 1: 29-42 Sermon Title: Getting Out of the Way Preached on January 19, 2020 Last Thursday afternoon I saw something remarkable. Remarkable things happen and I’m thankful when I notice them. Our daughter Lily was the one who pointed this one out. We were walking with her friend Julia, leaving the church after helping out at Club 3:30, our afterschool program. Once she pointed it out, we all stopped dead in our tracks because walking across the Harris Hines Memorial Bridge was a pink dog. That’s right. A pink dog. The woman walking the dog saw us gawking but just kept strolling normally as though she were walking a normal dog. She wasn’t. That dog was pink, and we caught up to her to ask her about it. Once we caught up, we could tell that this pink dog belongs to Maggie, daughter of Janet Lewis. Maggie just wanted to give her dog a pink mohawk, only the dog moved while she was dying it so Maggie ended up dying her whole dog pink, which is something that never once occurred to me to do. I’ve never thought of dying my dog’s hair, but Maggie has. Isn’t that remarkable? It’s so important to stop and notice when you see something remarkable. The most remarkable sight that anyone has ever seen walked up to John the Baptist and John the Baptist stopped to notice. Last Sunday we focused on John the Baptist just as we do today, but this week is different. Last week we read a Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew that described John’s willingness to step forward to baptize Jesus. John hesitated, not feeling worthy of baptizing Jesus. In stepping forward and answering the call to baptize the Lord in the Jordan, John models a courage that we need to have too for God calls on us all to step forward. However, while John the Baptist had the courage to step forward even though he felt unworthy, what we see in today’s Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of John is that he also had the wisdom to step back in awe and wonder. Last week he stepped forward to do something. This week he gets out of the way. We must be able to do both possessing the wisdom to know which we should do at any given time. Not everyone has that kind of wisdom, but people must know how to step back. If they don’t, they can be very annoying to be around. There are some people in this world who don’t know when to step forward to speak, but at the same time there are plenty of people who don’t know when to stop talking. There are some people in this world who never try, but there are plenty of other people who try too hard. There are some people in this world who don’t know how to accept praise, who have no capacity to receive a compliment, but there are so many others who never step back to give others their due, serving as the president of their own fan club, wanting all the good news to be about them. Do you know anyone like that? Of course you do, because while there are people who have trouble stepping forward, there are others who don’t know how to step back, so consider John again today. Last Sunday we saw how he stepped up to ministry when he was called on. Today we see that he also steps back for when he saw Jesus coming toward him, he points away from himself to declare: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” In thinking about John’s example now for two weeks in a row I realize that I don’t always have the courage or the nerve to step forward. Neither do I always have the wisdom or humility to step back. A funny thing about being a preacher is that you stand at the door as everyone leaves the service. The reason we do this is to greet you, the members of the congregation, and to connect with you as your pastors. An added bonus is that we also become those who receive all the compliments. You are such a gracious group of people, and you so generously tell me when the choir sang so beautifully, when the flowers looked just perfect, even when the floors are clean. Regardless of whom should receive the compliment I am often the one who receives them. Do you know what I always say? “Thank you.” I guess there’s nothing else I could say. Only consider for a moment just how many hands go into crafting this worship service. Someone must print the bulletins, another hands them out. There are speakers and microphones which have been maintained and controlled from up in the sound booth. Music is played on the organ, prayers have been written and proofread, hymns sung. There are too many parts of this worship service for any one person to take credit for. Plus, all of what goes on here is empty without the Holy Spirit, yet I am the one who says, “Thank you.” That doesn’t make any sense; however, this is so often the way it is. Consider all the people you know who never step back to thank those whose shoulders they stand on. How many quarterbacks bask in the limelight without thanking those who blocked for them? How many dig into their meal without giving thanks to God from whom all blessings flow and for the hands who prepared the food? How many hours in a day do we spend looking at our phones when pink dogs are walking by? We wake up to scarlet sunrises. We sleep under a galaxy of stars, and still some spend so much time navel gazing that they would have failed to take notice of even “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” I’m as guilty as anybody. The church I served in Lilburn was facing a financial crisis, which they emerged from. They went from a massive forecasted budget deficit to a large financial surplus. When I left that church for First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, TN, a former college president, Dr. Herold Pryor had heard this story from my resume. At a meet and greet with the entire congregation present he asked me down in the Fellowship Hall what I had done to achieve such a success. Sarcastically I said, “well, I’m a financial genius.” Of course, that isn’t true. I’m not a financial genius. Still, it was on my resume because it’s hard to explain when the God of miracles acts and it’s easy for humans to take the credit. We all want to be the somebody who can fix it or did fix it. We see problems and we pressure leaders to do something about them. If a leader of this country were to say, “Well, I’ve prayed about unemployment and I trust that God will do something about it” she’d never get elected because it seems passive to step back and point to the heavens. No one wants to admit that they can’t do it. No wants to admit that they can’t help. For we’re all the time pretending we have it all together, so it’s time we learned from John that having it all together is not what’s required. I think about the Rev. Billy Graham. You know he preached across the country and the world asking us to do this one thing: “Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Who knows how many lives he changed just by asking this one question? Who knows how many faced their end without fear because of their answer? But we must not think for a minute that this is a simple request, for acknowledging Christ as Lord and Savior requires accepting that we cannot save ourselves. That’s a hard thing to do. Don’t think it’s not, for we all fall into the trap of believing that we’re doing pretty well on our own. That we just need to work a little bit harder. That we can hold it all together if we just wake up a little earlier. So, listen to this. Someone once asked Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, who was a Presbyterian, if she’d ever considered divorce. She said, “Oh no. Absolutely not. However, I’ve often considered murder.” That’s a funny story, but I tell it because it’s also a liberating one. Don’t look to the mere mortal. Look to the One all the great preachers, mere mortals themselves, have pointed towards, because everyone is need of His grace. Everyone. That Prayer of Confession in your bulletin: do you know who it comes from? Me. Do you know where I gain inspiration for those prayer? My sin. So maybe some of these prayers don’t all fit your life, but don’t go through that thing like a checklist. Because these are my confessions, I worry that they don’t always fit your life, only don’t look at that prayer and think through it like this: Together we prayed: We confess that we have not sought your face, but I worry that someone might have added to their prayer, “well God, maybe Joe hasn’t but I’ve been seeking your face.” Then we continued Focused on ourselves we look past your presence and the needs of others, and maybe someone looked heavenward self-satisfied saying, “All good there.” Then finally the prayer continued, Rather than sing the praise of our redeemer, we take center stage. Did any of you pray, “Lord, I’m good here too, but we have some work to do on our preacher”? Some of us read through the prayer of confession on Sunday morning and use it as a nice, weekly, internal audit. Only that’s not the point, because while we all want to be good, while we all want to be innocent, the prayer of confession invites us to face our faults so that we can receive his grace. That’s the truth. I know doing so is a lot to ask. We don’t want to ask for help. No one does. No one likes the truth that we are broken and need His healing. We like to teach and don’t want to be taught. Knowing how stubborn we can all be, recognize the strength it took for John the Baptist who “saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”” It’s not me. It’s him. I can’t do it, but he can. I cannot hold it together, and here is one who holds the whole world in his hands. I am not good, but he is so good. A counselor once said it to me this way: sometimes we must stop trying to fill our own cup, to see that he has already filled it. We must step back from our problems to see him answer our prayers. We struggle to be worthy, because we want to be loved but step back, because you are already. Get out of the way and allow him to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Amen.

Called But Not Qualified

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 42: 1-9 and Matthew 3: 13-17 Sermon Title: Called but not Qualified Preached on January 12, 2020 Last Thursday was a special night for me. Having been nominated by Jim Kerr, I was honored to be named among the top twenty under 40 in Cobb County. They gave me a fancy glass trophy and had me walk across the stage, while several members of our congregation who were in attendance cheered, which made me feel very special. But as the other names were called and all their accomplishments were listed, I started to feel a little out of place. At the end of the ceremony before cocktails on the roof of the Strand Theater, I bumped into Trevor Beemon, executive director of Cobb Landmarks and the William Root House and also one of the 20 under 40. We agreed that we both felt like imposters. “I mean, a guy who was on TV on The Voice was up there,” he said, noting that we had been grouped with truly incredible people. Well, I ran into that guy who was on The Voice in the stair well. I told him I was honored to be included in this group with him, and he said, “Oh man. I felt so out of place. I had to go up on the stage right after that lady who is the South-East’s top building contractor, who also happens to be a helicopter commander. I’m just a singer!” That made me feel better, because I guess, we all feel unworthy at times. Look at John the Baptist. Our Scripture Lesson begins: “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” The author of the book of Matthew tells us that John would have prevented him, and I can understand that because getting called on by God to do something so incredible is a terrifying thing. Being called on by God to do anything important is terrifying, because it makes us all, even John the Baptist, feel unworthy. I’ll never forget how our neighbor back in Tennessee, a great Episcopalian named Kile Patrick, called his wife Connie just to say, “I just had the most incredible thought. If my cell phone rang and the caller ID said that it was God calling, would I pick up?” Not everybody would. Not everybody does. Think about it. Isn’t it an overwhelming thought that God would call on you or me to do something for him? So, just about every time it happens the one who’s called on hesitates. The Lord appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush and Moses says: “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh.” The Lord woke young Jeremiah from sleep in the Temple and Jeremiah says: “Wait a minute. I am only a boy.” The Lord calls Isaiah and Isaiah says: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” The phone rings and God is calling but not many people are ready to pick it up so also Jesus came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him, and John would have prevented him asking, “who am I to be baptized by you?” Isn’t that what we all ask? Who am I to serve the church as an Elder? Who am I to be a Deacon? Who am I to teach? Who am I to comfort those who mourn? Who am I to preach? How do any of us respond to the honor of being called, and yet we must play our part for Christianity is not a spectator sport, though sometimes we treat it like it is. Sometimes we walk into this sanctuary, and because there are seats out there, there’s a platform up here, it’s easy to fall into the misconception that this place is something like a theater. In a theater, there are three basic stations, there are three basic roles. There’s the audience, the actors on the stage and then there’s the director who is back behind the curtain. That’s true in so many places we go. At a dance recital, there are the dancers on the stage, the instructors are behind the curtain helping them along, and the parents and grandparents are loving every minute of it in the audience. But this sanctuary is different. Every Church is different, because when we are bold to see God at work and when we are courageous enough to answer the call, the whole world is different. According to the great Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, in the sanctuary God is the audience, you are the ones on stage, and it is the job of those of us who stand up here to direct you in your performance of praise and worship. How then is it if someone falls asleep in the back? To God it is the same as if a dancer fell asleep on stage. Christianity, like life, is not a spectator sport, though some treat it as though it were. Some are called on but don’t pick up the phone. They don’t feel worthy, they don’t feel able, they don’t have the time, though the Lord calls on humans to take on divine work just as Jesus called on John at the Jordan. John doesn’t feel worthy to do so. Neither do I. We sing to worship God in here, but why would God want to hear us sing? It sounds strange that God would need our voices, maybe because we don’t know that God uses them, but let me tell you something, God does. I was at a funeral last Thursday. Many of you were there too. Our choir sang. At the reception Mayor Tumlin walked up to me and he said, “That choir is amazing. And to think that all those people would show up to sing on a Thursday at 2:00.” Why did they do that? Maybe some of them asked themselves the same question: “Why should I show up to sing when there is work to do, and laundry to fold, and what difference will it make any way?” These are the questions that we ask, while God calls us to lift up our voices because it is the music which points to the truth that we cannot comprehend. It is the choir who lifts up the faint hearted. For the presence of mere mortals brings comfort to the broken hearted. Do you know that? It’s true. God calls us. God uses us. But like John we hesitate, saying, “I’m not worthy.” Take heart then, because God doesn’t call perfect people. God doesn’t call the qualified. God qualifies the called. Christianity, like life, is no spectator sport, and just as Jesus called on John to baptize him in the Jordan, so also you and I are called on every single time a baby is baptized here. You are not to watch as I sprinkle that water on her head – you are to participate, making promises to everyone who is baptized here “to receive the child into the life of the church” and to “support and encourage her through prayer and example to be faithful in Christian Discipleship.” You and I have been called because we have a job to do. Now that I’ve explained it this way you might be thinking what John was thinking and wishing that you hadn’t made the promises that you made, but hear what Jesus said to John, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Isn’t it a miracle, an amazing miracle, that all righteousness is fulfilled with the help of a human’s hands? That a church is called on to teach a child about the grace of God? This is God’s way – the divine inviting the human, not to stand by and watch, but to play a part. Consider for just a moment how many human beings played their part in loving you so that you became the person you are today. I was standing there with Mayor Tumlin as he was celebrating our choir. Then he noticed Victoria Chastain standing there handing out glasses of water. “Is that the kind of job I have to look forward to as an ex-mayor of the city of Marietta?” he asked. They both laughed and across the room a woman looked at me and walked over. She looked me in the eye and said, “Can you remember who I am?” I said, “Of course I can. You’re Mrs. Peterson! My teacher!” She said, “Well, yes, but it’s Mrs. Pickett.” And I said, “Of course, Mrs. Pickett, my third-grade teacher.” She said, “Well, it was fifth grade, but yes.” We talked for a while, and she told me she wished she could go dig up some of the things I wrote when I was in her class at Hickory Hills Elementary school, and the thing I wanted to say but couldn’t is that she loved how I wrote and I remember. She bound up our writing in little books, and she asked me to read mine to the whole school at an assembly. My book was called the Swamp Monster, and she loved it, and it made me feel so good that my teacher loved it. My parents meant to be there when I read it to the school, but they got mixed up about the time, and when I cried because they weren’t there Mrs. Pickett gave me a hug and it meant the whole world. Or it might have been my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Peterson. Regardless, my point is this: there are people who made all the difference to me. Some of them are here right now, because God uses mortals to participate in the divine story that is changing us and the world. Jesus called on John to baptize him in the Jordan, just as he calls on you, just as he calls on me. We may not be qualified, but we are called, so say yes. Amen.