They Left Their Nets

A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany (A – RCL) 2011, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1,4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23


There was an energetic pastor of a church somewhere down south who preached an enthusiastic sermon one Sunday about serving in the Army of the Lord. He called on everyone present to enlist in the Lord’s army, to be willing to lay down their lives to protect and advance the kingdom of God.

As usual, this pastor stood at the door after the service to shake hands with the congregation. He was feeling quite bold this Sunday, so when one particular fellow, who was not a regular, came to shake hands, the pastor eagerly drew him aside and said, “You, my friend, need to join the Army of the Lord!”

“But I’m already in the Lord’s Army, pastor!” he responded. So the pastor questioned him, “Why then do I only see you once or twice a year?”

The parishioner glanced around him quickly and then leaned in and whispered to the pastor, “Shhh! I’m in the Secret Service! OR I’m on an undercover operation!”

My dear friends, it is the unfortunate truth that we have far too many people who are working undercover, so to speak.

This has brought us to a point right now where we find ourselves, as a Christian community, walking right now down a dangerous path. Imagine, if you will, a snow- and ice-covered path through the mountains. It is only a few feet wide. There is no handrail to hold onto to. Only a few rocks sticking out of the ice here and there on one side. On the other side is a steep ravine, falling away hundreds of feet. The wind is howling. The sunlight is fading into dusk. There is no one else around in sight.

For me, this is a good visual image of where we find ourselves right now. How did we get here in this dangerous place? We did not walk out onto this path on purpose. As a church, we did not choose to begin a course that has led to continuous decline in our membership, in our financial strength, and in our influence in society at large.

We did not intentionally choose this path. However, nonetheless, this is precisely where we find ourselves today. Today – right now – we are all together facing the possibility of continuing decline and even the potential for closing our doors for good in the not-too-distant-future.

Just look around. Ask yourself: where is the next generation? Where are all of the young adults in their twenties and thirties and forties who we need to step up and provide the leadership and base of support needed to carry us forward?

(We have some / there are some here – praise God! But there are not enough, not here nor anywhere else within the Diocese of NJ.)

The situation is not entirely bleak, of course. With determination and effort, and the guiding help of the Holy Spirit, we may yet maneuver our way out of this dangerous position. But to do this is not easy, and it will demand much from all of us who are here today. Let me explain.

Energy and passion is always contagious! When you love something – whatever it is, you can’t help but to tell others about it, to share your joy with someone else. Take a moment and think right now about those things in life that you love which you learned from others when you were young. Think of the infectious love for something or other which you contracted from another, whether a parent or a sibling or a favorite uncle or maybe your best friend growing up. You possess that love and joy today because they shared it with you, whether directly or indirectly. What are these things that you love now? Go ahead and name them out loud.

Great…Well, here’s a secret for you, my friends. It’s no different in the realm of faith! More often than not, young people catch the same kind of enthusiasm and joy that is shared by the significant adults in their life.

You may have seen the notice about our ONE BOOK study this Spring here in the Diocese of NJ. All together, we will be reading and studying this book entitled Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church. This book is a response to the ground-breaking 2005 National Report on Youth and Religion, the most rigorous and comprehensive study ever of American teenagers and their connections to religion. Many of our Diocesan leaders met yesterday, along with Bishop George and the author of this book, to discuss the implications of this study in small groups.

This 2005 report is a veritable treasure-trove of useful information, but one of the most immediately interesting findings is that the vast majority of young people mirror the same faith that is practiced by their parents. Contrary to some popular beliefs, statistically speaking, most young people do not reject the religion of their parents. Just the opposite: most are willing to believe what their parents have believed.

And that - right there - is where our problem lies. You see, most of our young people will have the same faith and devotion and commitment that they see in the everyday lives of their parents.

So the message for us is clear: if we are to reverse our deteriorating situation, then we simply must fall in love with Jesus. If we truly and deeply love Jesus, and if our young people see this love and devotion within is, it will be contagious and it will be caught and carried on in their own lives.

When Jesus walked along the shore of the sea of Galilee and called his first disciples to come and follow him, he called them to leave everything else behind. And so the text states that they responded with incredible commitment. “Immediately they left their nets and followed him.”

But for what purpose? To what new life did Jesus call these men? “Follow me,” he said to them, “and I will make you fish for people” (Matthew 4:19).

“Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” The call of Jesus to us here today is no different. He loves the people out there who are hurting and struggling and who feel hopeless and alone. And he is calling us today to join him in fishing for them. That’s why he feeds us, so that we can be strong in fishing for others! The hooks that we cast are those of love and commitment and devotion. And if we are faithful in casting these out, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we might have the privilege of seeing lives transformed and added to the growing kingdom of God. Amen.

How Great Thou Art

Sermon for Christ the King RCL 11/22/2009, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: 2 Samuel 23:1-7; Psalm 132; Revelation 1:4b-8; John 18:33-37

We have a problem this Sunday, my friends.
This Sunday is commonly called Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the Church Year, when we gather together all that we have heard and learned over the course of the past year and collect all of that together in celebration and commemoration while pointing ahead to the final end of the story.

The final end of this story is Jesus Christ, who not only is the Alpha – the beginning of our human story – but also the Omega – the final goal of humanity. We proclaim his today as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

And this is where our problem begins. We Americans do not particularly like kings. In fact, we rejected the whole idea of having a king to rule over us some 230 years ago! In general, we Americans have been known to mistrust those in authority and to fight to protect our individual liberties at any cost.

Some in the Church, recognizing this problem, have attempted to change the language we use in order to address this issue. Many of you have heard it. Instead of the kingdom of God, they speak now of the reign of God. As if somehow that change in wording is supposed to be less offensive to people today.

But there is some value in this change of language. If we think it through, “kingdom” suggests a place, a particular realm where a king is sovereign. But our King cannot be defined by boundaries of space and time. The word “reign”, however, points to the personal rule of the one on the throne. “The reign of the King.”

But, no matter what precise words we may use, we do worship Christ as King of all the earth. Alive today, active in guiding the world, we honor Him this day as King. No lands are beyond his reach; no language is beyond his understanding; no person is beyond his touch. He is the faithful witness: the one who stood before Pilate and Herod and the Sanhedrin to proclaim the truth, who offered his life in his Passion for the healing of the nations.

He is the firstborn of the dead: the first raised from the dead among many brothers and sisters, a large family of his own redeeming, the one who loves us and frees us from our sins.

He is the ruler of the kings of the earth: every earthly king and president and emperor exists to serve him and to do his will. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice.

In spite of all these words of praise, it is impossible for us truly to understand with our minds what it means that Christ is King.

In a few minutes, we will sing together the great evangelical hymn, How Great Thou Art.
The story of this hymn is amazing. It struck me this week as a parable of Christ as King of all the earth. The words of the hymn were first written by Carl Gustav Boberg in Sweden in 1885 after experiencing an amazing summer-time thunderstorm. Three years later it was paired with an old Swedish folk tune and it began to be sung in Swedish protestant churches. It had nine verses originally, but only the first 2 verses of the hymn as we know it today. The song migrated to the Swedish immigrant community in Estonia, where it was appreciated by a German Baptist. He translated it into German and the hymn began to grow in popularity in Germany. The German version of the hymn was then translated into Russian and it moved into Russia.

Stuart Hine was a British Methodist missionary sent to work among the people living in the Ukranian mountains in the 1930’s. Hine learned this great hymn while working there in the Ukraine. He wrote the third verse (“And when I think, that God his Son not sparing…”) based on the actual words of Ukranian Christians who were experiencing a profound repentance and conversion of heart.

Later, after WW II, Hine was working among Polish refugees in England. Once, he spoke with a Polish Christian man who was separated from his wife, and who, since it was highly unlikely that he would find his wife again, expressed his longing to be re-united with her among the saints in the age to come. Hine wrote the fourth verse which we know today. “When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation, what joy shall fill my heart…”

But the story continues! Hine published the hymn in a Gospel songbook which British missionaries took with them around the world. And a missionary working in Africa brought this hymn back with him to America in 1951. In a few years, How Great Thou Art became one of the signature songs of the Billy Graham Crusades. And now it ranks as the second most popular hymn in the world behind Amazing Grace.

Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, England, Africa, America. This King moves among all of the people of the earth, and works to touch the hearts of all with his power and his love. We humans tend to think so small: my town, my people, my country. But our King knows no boundaries of time or space.

Do you think that Carl Boberg, walking home from church in high summer in Sweden, getting wet in the rain, viewing the rainbow over the bay as the bright summer overtook the sky once more, - do you think he could have ever imagined the Christians all over the world for decades and centuries to come would sing the hymn of praise he wrote that day? Can any of us know how our King will use the offerings of our gifts and talents and treasures to increase his reign in the hearts of humanity?

The One who meets us in this place; the One who feeds us at this table; the One who teaches us how to live; this One is the King of all the earth. This Christ works and moves in ways that are beyond our understanding. He is the King. We are his kingdom; he reigns over us with grace and peace. And for that, we give our thanks and praise. Amen.

Blood Gushes Out

A Homily for Good Friday 2009 (4/10/2009), Offered at Church of the Holy Spirit, Bellmawr, NJ

There’s an old celtic story from Ireland about a conversation between Mary and Jesus when he was a young boy.

“Are you asleep, Mother?” Jesus asks.

“No, I am awake, dear Son.”

“Why are you awake, Mother?”

“Because I am distressed by a vision of you.”

“What is that vision, Mother?”

“It is a slim dark man, on a black horse, with a long
sharp lance in his left hand. He pierces your right side, and blood gushes
out.”

“Where does the blood fall, Mother?”

“It falls into my heart and into the hearts of all that love you.”
(Celtic Fire, by Robert Van de Weyer, 1990, p. 162-3).

Why do we call this day good? How can we give such a positive appellation for a day of suffering and pain, forced upon one who never deserved such treatment?

In the eastern churches, it is called Great Friday because it stands apart from and above every other Friday of the year. Perhaps the title of good derived from that ancient title many hundreds of years ago.

Of course, we know now why it is Good Friday. In this cross, we discover who we really are. What other people have been bought at such a cost? Who else in the history of humankind has ever willingly died to create a new community, to redeem a new nation?
-Because of this Good and Great Friday, we know that we are loved, we know that nothing – not even death – can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The blood which gushes forth from the cross falls into the hearts of all that love him. Does it fall into your heart? Does it touch your heart? Are you there, standing with the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross, gazing on the one who was pierced?

I can think of no better place to stand. Stay there at the foot of the cross. Spend your entire life there with Mary, allowing the awesome majesty of love divine to ever hold sway over your heart and mind.

One more ancient Celtic song for our reflection upon the Cross:

“I adore the suffering King who feels my suffering; I love the sorrowing Lord
who knows my sorrow.

At his death, no fire came upon his captors to
burn them, no great flood rose to sweep them away; the earth did not open to
swallow them up; the sky did not fall to crush them.

No fierce
birds came to attack Pilate; no wild beast mauled the priests and the scribes;
no snake rose up to bite those who whipped Jesus.

He allowed them
to accuse him falsely, without opening his mouth. He let them drag him to the
cross with no words of reproof. He watched quietly as they drove nails into his
hands and feet.

He who created the universe, he who preserves the
universe, he whom the sun and moon obey, he who rules the stars, forsook his
mighty power.

So he suffered with us who suffer much; he sorrowed
with us who feel much sorrow.

I adore the suffering King who feels
my suffering; I love the sorrowing Lord who knows my sorrow.”
(Celtic Fire, by Robert Van de Weyer, 1990, p.167-8).

Amen.

Time's Up!

A Sermon offered for the 1st Sunday of Lent, at Church of the Holy Spirit in Bellmawr, and St. Luke's Church in Westville, NJ

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” This is the essential message that our Lord came to bring to humanity. This is the Gospel message! Unfortunately, sadly, this message, even to this day, is often misunderstood. But rest assured, my friends, it is my calling to make sure that all of us here in this parish eventually understand its true meaning and impact.

In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created to bring electricity to rural America. This energy promised to provide a vastly improved quality of life for farmers. When the lines were installed into new areas and electric power was made available, the people had to make a decision. Very few of them had any personal experience with this electricity. They had heard of it, to be sure, and they heard of all the ways their life would be different because of it. But in order to receive these benefits, they had to believe the message, they had to understand how this worked, and they had to take the necessary steps to become connected to this source of energy. These farmers had to turn away from the life that they had known for so long: a life with kerosene lamps and iceboxes and washboards and pedal-powered sewing machines. A totally new life was right there waiting for them, but they had to connect to it and begin to rely upon it for their everyday existence. It’s hard to imagine now, but some couldn’t make the change, and chose to stay outside of the world of electricity.

In essence, the message delivered by the government to these farmers was this: “The time has come, and the kingdom of electricity is at hand; repent, change your ways and accept this new improved life.”

In our day and time, I like to think about the kingdom of God in the same way as the world of the wireless internet. All around us, at every moment, is a source of information and communication that would have been impossible for our ancestors to have imagined. We can’t see it, but it’s there - all around us. We can choose not to connect, to stay with our old familiar ways. Or we can receive this new power and begin to have our lives transformed.

The analogies may be rough, but they speak truth, I believe, about our Lord’s message to us. “It’s time,” he declared to the people and he says to us today. “It’s time! God’s kingdom is here. Change directions, and trust in this message.”

It’s so easy for us to get mixed up about this, because our western churches have focused so heavily upon the question of eternal judgment and the forgiveness of sins. But this is clearly not the focus of the Gospel!

At the 225th Convention of the Diocese of NJ this past Friday and Saturday, we sang a number of old revival hymns. I learned these while I was in Virginia and my wife Erin knows them all from her Southern Baptist upbringing. One thing they all have in common is this singular focus upon our status after death:

“When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.” They’re fun to sing. But I’m sorry to say that they generally miss the point entirely about the Gospel!

The Holy One of Israel is a God of forgiving love and mercy. All of the Hebrew prophets knew that! Just look at the Psalms which were written hundreds of years before Christ. Today’s Psalm speaks of the “steadfast love and faithfulness” of God. “His mercy endures forever” is the refrain of many of the psalms.

David, and Solomon and Isaiah and the others knew that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. (It would be foolish to think that Jesus came to teach us about the love of God.) The problem was that, although the people of Israel knew and heard about the love of God, it made no practical change in their homes and in their communities. Anger, greed, violence, and injustice were just as common in Bethlehem as they were in Rome.

And the sad truth is that they continue to be very common in our world today and even among Christians.

As we read along in The Illumined Heart, we will hear more about the spiritual disciplines of the early Christians. For me, I find the image of the athlete in training as very helpful here. The committed athlete works with the trainer to develop a specific plan to strengthen weak areas in his performance. If the shoulders need to be strengthened for better performance, then military presses and other exercises are planned out and the results are tallied and charted.

If we are committed to growing closer to God and living a fuller, healthier, abundant life, then we follow the same kind of pattern. With assistance from someone who is experienced, we identify our weak areas and then plan out exercises to strengthen that part of our life. If my weakness is that I tend to speak before I think, and often cut people down with negative and hurtful comments, then I take on an intentional practice of saying a brief prayer before speaking, and saying one positive thing before I ever say something negative!

If I really do covet what my neighbor has and greed is a problem in my soul, then I develop a specific plan to change this, perhaps by volunteering once a week to help those less fortunate than me, and perhaps concretely giving something tangible away on a regular basis.

Do you get the idea of how this works? You see, it’s so tempting for us to externalize the Gospel. “The kingdom of God is here, so we need to change that bad government! We need to change those bad laws! We need to build more schools to teach the children!”

But, tell me, what good is it to build schools to teach children if we still go home at night and abuse our children in private?! What good is it to pass civil rights laws if we are still going to cultivate hatred in our households for those who are different?

No, no, no. The struggle is not our there. It’s right here. The dividing line between good and evil runs through every human heart. This (pointing to my heart) is where the true fight for the kingdom of God is taking place, every single day!

Leave behind your old self with its bad habits, and connect now to a source of energy and wisdom that is endless. Learn to live a new life now intimately connected to God.
That’s the message that our Lord brings. And though the task may seem overwhelming, unending grace – divine energy – is made available to us in the Holy Spirit.

It seems that Thomas Cranmer and the English reformers understood this. One of the last requests that we made in the Great Litany this morning is right on target here and we would do well to chew on these words:

“That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy holy Word.” We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. So may it be. Amen.

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

The Present Form of This World

-Well, it is still early in the season of Epiphany – there are many weeks still before the start of Lent – and yet today the Lectionary calls us to stop and reflect together upon the call to repentance.

-Here in the Gospel of Mark, we read of our Lord’s first words after beginning his public ministry: “Repent, and believe in the good news.”
-I hope that none of us miss the significance of this. We can say with confidence that repentance is the first word of Jesus to this world.

-This was not a new message, of course. We see Jonah preaching a similar message to the people of Nineveh: repent or else destruction is coming upon you.

-But, within the kingdom of God, repentance is a bit different than the actions taken by the Ninevites. For those of us in Christ, repentance is not a one time affair. It is not even a once a year activity that we only contemplate during Lent.

-For those of us baptized into Christ, repentance is our way of life. Repentance is the door to a new life and also the path to a new life. Repentance is the gateway into a new land of wholeness and abundance, but it is also the way deeper into this land. It is the Christian’s way of life.

-Well, that is my claim, and this is the primary matter I believe that we desperately need to consider together this morning. But I am sure all of you right now are saying to yourselves, “Oh great. Repentance, huh? Gee, this sounds like fun.”

-But it is fun! Really! And it is exciting. And it is crucially important. Let me show you what I mean.

-We human beings desperately need to change. This human society in which we live is very, very messed up. God has given to us free will, and we have used this to sow destruction throughout every part of the earth.
-True, there is beauty everywhere, to be sure, but the amount of pain and suffering in this world is immense, truly unbearable if we try to hold it all. I will spare us a list of any relevant statistics.

-We need to change, and we all know it. In fact, the call to change echoes everywhere today.
-“Change we can believe in.” “The change we need.” Sound familiar? Talk about change is everywhere in our society today, starting from the top, but what does it mean?

-Now, I did not vote for Barack Obama, but I do recognize and applaud his ability to energize people and to give many a new sense of hope and optimism. The inauguration this past week was amazing – just the raw sense of energy and emotion and joy and anticipation.

-But the problem is this: real change comes from within, and it is slow to come. Passing new laws, writing new executive orders, cutting federal checks – none of this will really change anything. All action comes from within. “You will know a tree by its fruits.” Our actions are the fruits of our hearts and they faithfully reveal what is inside.

-Our family likes to watch movies together. I remember once two years ago when we all decided one night to watch a movie together and we watched An Inconvenient Truth – the movie by Al Gore which presents the looming crisis of global warming in stark relief. It is startling to see all of this information put together, even for someone like myself who has studied environmental issues for my entire adult life. But for our oldest children – who were 11 and 9 years old at the time – it struck a deep chord. They immediately wanted to spring into action and began talking about what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. “Angus,” our daughter Se` said to her older brother, “maybe we can spend less time watching TV and playing X-Box, and maybe we can play outside more!”
-It was heartwarming to see this kind of response, but little does she yet know of human nature.
-She does not yet understand that human beings, left to their own meager resources, are rarely able to transform themselves. Her resolve to change lasted only a week or so. Most New Year’s resolutions for 2009 won’t make it out of January still in force!

-So how then do we change? How do we effect real and lasting change within ourselves or within our communities?

-The self-help gurus of our culture tell me to look inside and to recognize how powerful I truly am. But it’s just not there.
-No, I need another source of power, another source of energy outside of myself in order truly to become myself, truly to become the man who God has intended me to be.
-You see, from all eternity, God has designed me to be a certain kind of man. Try as I may now to fit into that design, I am not able. I try to change my life to be that Christ-like model, and I fail. I try and I fail. I try and I fail.
-I need something else! I need a source of power, a source of energy outside of myself to enable me to become who God has intended me to be!

-When our Lord began his ministry, he preached this message: “The kingdom of God has come near.” The kingdom of God is near, right at hand, surrounding us at all times and in all places. In that kingdom, the very life power of God is made available to us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Power – dynamos in the Greek – from which we get the word dynamic. Dynamic energy, power, force, vigor – this is the message of the Gospel.
-Kingdom power right here and now available to us through the means of grace.

-This then is the path of repentance for us. It is not a one time affair. It is a continual way of life in which we turn away from the present form of this world, our weak and fallen selves, and become empowered by the grace of God to claim our true selves.

-The apostle Paul taught us that “the present form of this world is passing away,” and that’s a good thing because it is weak. Instead, we continually turn to the kingdom of God and receive power, strength, energy to be transformed daily more and more into the fullness of Christ.

-The temptation is to be fooled by the present form of this world. All is not as it seems, and every single day we are being sold a bill of goods, a stack of lies about how to be happy and whole. All we need is a flatter tummy, or whiter teeth, or smarter investments, or a better car, or hair with less gray in it. The list is endless.

-But thanks be to God that we can hear a different voice, the call of the Holy Spirit to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Thanks be to God that grace and power are available to us when we repent and believe in the good news. Amen.