Reverend Ian Doescher

The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany

One of those classic divinity school jokes is about the most common form of sermon: three points and a poem.  Need to write a sermon?  All you need is three points and a poem.  Well, I’m not normally a formulaic sermon writer, but I confess that today’s sermon is going to be three points and a poem.

First, though, some background.  The gospel passage that I just read is the familiar tale of Jesus’ calling of the first disciples.  So the three points I have today are about what it means to be called, based on what we see here in this passage from Luke.  So here goes.

Point number one: we are more likely to answer a call when we have seen evidence.  The story of Jesus calling the first disciples is so familiar to most of us that we don’t notice why it is different in the book of Luke.  Here’s a hint about why Luke’s account is different from Matthew or Mark, which are the other gospels where this story appears: the hint is that it doesn’t have to do with this passage itself, but it has to do with what comes before it in the book of Luke.  You know that story about Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law?  Jesus goes into Peter’s mother-in-law’s house, and she is sick in bed, and Jesus heals her and she gets up and serves them.  In Matthew and Mark, that story is told after Jesus has already called his disciples, and so I’ve always imagined that Jesus and Peter are fast friends by this time, and Jesus is performing a miracle on his good friend’s mother-in-law.  But in Luke, the situation is totally different.  Early on in Jesus’ ministry, as recounted in Luke 4, Jesus is healing many people, and he goes into the house of Simon Peter and heals his mother-in-law.  And only then, in today’s gospel passage from Luke 5, Jesus calls to Simon Peter from the shore, gets into Peter’s boat, and tells the disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat.  And they do, and lo and behold they have an amazing catch of fish.  Now Simon Peter has not only seen Jesus heal the sick, he has also witnessed Jesus’ power over nature itself, commanding the fish to enter the net.  Simon Peter recognizes that he is in the presence of a great man, an amazing healer and miracle-worker, and Peter says, “Go away from me, Lord!  For I am a sinful man!”  And Jesus says to a frightened Peter, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.”  And Peter, James and John, having witnessed the miracle, go on their way with Jesus.  But the point here is that these disciples were more able to hear Jesus’ call on their lives because they had seen evidence of his power.  And the same thing is true for us, I think—we are more likely to answer a call when we have seen evidence.  So here’s a question: if God is calling this congregation, will we be likely to answer God’s call because we have seen evidence of God’s work in our lives?  For this congregation, for Calvary Presbyterian Church I think the answer to that question has to be a resounding yes.  I have heard story after story from all of you about the ways God has moved in this congregation, the way you have been touched by God’s presence in your lives.  I have heard stories of healing, stories of reconciliation, stories of prayer answered, story of community offered and love shown.  These are the stories you have told me, and they are evidence of God’s power in and among this congregation.  So if we have seen the evidence, won’t we, like Peter, James and John, be more likely to answer the call?

So that’s point one: we are more likely to answer a call when we have seen evidence.  Point number two is: we never know when the call will come.  I’m going to make a confession about my sermon writing process.  Every month, toward the end of the month, Joni asks me to turn in my Chimes newsletter article for the month that follows.  And when I write my newsletter article, I come up with my sermon titles for the next month too.  I do this by looking at what biblical texts are coming up in the lectionary, and then ask myself what might fit with something I might preach on those texts, to say nothing of what might be eye-catching from Fremont.  Here’s the confession: when I was looking at the texts for today, February 7, my high opinion of my biblical knowledge got the better of reality.  Here is what I mean: I saw that the gospel lesson for today was Luke 5:1-11, so I looked that passage up in my Bible, read it, and said to myself, “Ahh yes, the call of the first disciples.”  Then I looked at the epistle lesson for today, which was not read at all, and it said 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.  And I made the mistake of not looking that passage up in my Bible, because the memory banks of my brain said, “I know what 1 Corinthians 15 is, that’s where Paul is talking about death and resurrection.  ‘O death, where is thy sting?’ and all that good stuff.”  So I called my sermon today “When the Call Comes,” because I was thinking of the double meaning of Jesus calling his disciples, and also the call of death.  And then as I was beginning my sermon I actually read 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, and much to my surprise it comes before the discussion of death and resurrection, and consists of Paul justifying his apostleship, having been called by Christ to his work.  So in the end, what I thought I knew about 1 Corinthians 15 was wrong, so this sermon wasn’t going to be about death after all.  Except.  Except that we never know when the call will come, and this Tuesday morning the call came for Bakshish Masih, called home to be with God after twenty years of suffering in body and mind.  I was able to go see Catherine that morning, and was able to be reminded of my own calling once again, reminded that being invited into people’s times of grief is the greatest privilege of my job.  And reminded that we never know when the call will come.

So point number one was we are more likely to answer a call when we have seen evidence.  Point number two is we never know when the call will come.  And finally point number three: when we hear the call, we respond with action.  Fred Craddock tells a story about what it means to be called by God, really when he learned what it meant for someone to be called.  Craddock tells the story this way: “I think I was twenty years old when I read Albert Schweitzer’s Quest for the Historical Jesus.  I found his Christology woefully lacking—more water than wine.  I marked it up, wrote in the margins, raised questions of all kinds.  And one day, one day I read in the Knoxville News-Sentinel that Albert Schweitzer was going to be in Cleveland, Ohio, to play the dedicatory concert for a big organ in a big church up there.  According to the article he would remain afterward in the fellowship hall for conversation and refreshment.  I bought a Greyhound bus ticket and went to Cleveland.  All the way up there I worked on this Quest for the Historical Jesus.  I laid out my questions.  I had my questions on a separate sheet of paper, but I made reference to the pages…After [the concert] he came in[to the fellowship hall], shaggy hair, big white mustache, stooped, and seventy-five years old… He came in with a cup of tea and some refreshments and stood in front of the group, and there I was, close.  Dr. Schweitzer thanked everybody: ‘You’ve been very warm, hospitable to me.  I thank you for it, and I wish I could stay longer among you, but I must go back to Africa.  I must go back to Africa because my people are poor and diseased and hungry and dying, and I have to go.  We have a medical station at Lambarene.  If there’s anyone here in this room who has the love of Jesus, would you be prompted by that love to go with me and help me?’”  And here is how Craddock ends this story: “I looked down at my questions; they were so absolutely stupid.  And I learned, again, what it means to be Christian and had hopes that I could be that someday.”  In this powerful story, Craddock sees firsthand what it means for someone to hear and respond to the call of God: “I have to go” Schweitzer said.  “I have to go.”  When we hear the call, we respond with action.  Peter, James and John felt that compulsion of Jesus’ call—that sense of “I have to go.”  And today’s gospel passage ends with them doing just that, getting up and going: “They pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.”  I remember being in an adult church class a few years ago and one of the participants was referring to this passage of the Bible, where Peter, James and John get up and leave.  She was indignant by what she referred to as Peter, James and John deserting their families.  She called it desertion.  But I’ve never been able to see it that way—they heard the call, and they couldn’t help but be motivated to act.

Let me tell a story that’s a little closer to home about being pushed to action by a call.  As you all know, last Sunday the Presbyterian Urban Network invited consultant Ann Philbrick out to meet individually with each church, and then to speak at an event last Sunday night where members of all churches could come.  When Ann came to visit Calvary and meet with the session on Saturday morning last week, she started her time with us by having us walk her around the building and show her around.  There were two things she noticed right off: first, we have an awful lot of locks on an awful lot of doors, and second, she pointed out that many signs around the church have negative messages, like “authorized persons only,” “don’t do this,” “don’t touch that,” and so on.  These signs aren’t very welcoming, Ann pointed out, and I could see the heads of the session members nodding in agreement.  It reached a climax when we showed her the Fremont Street doors, really our main port of entry for visitors.  We opened that door, and Ann saw the sign posted on the door that said, “NO CASH ON PREMISES.”  She pointed to it and said to all of us, “This doesn’t say to visitors, ‘you are welcome here.’  Instead, it says, ‘We are afraid of you—and we think you’re trying to get something from us.’”  Ann’s point, of course, was about how we welcome visitors and how we appear to a world that is suspicious of the church.  She was also making a point about our own fearfulness, and I think it’s appropriate to remember that before Jesus asks Peter to follow him, the first thing he says is, “Don’t be afraid.”  Don’t be afraid.  In any case, I’m happy to say that a member of our congregation heard the Holy Spirit calling through Ann’s advice to us, and he was motivated to act.  On Friday, at the Buildings and Grounds Committee workday, this member came up to me with a conspiratorial smile and handed me the “NO CASH ON PREMISES” sign.  All it took was removing two little screws, and this church became a little more welcoming and a little less fearful.  All because somebody heard the call of God and was motivated to act.

Friends, when we hear the call of God, of Jesus, as Simon Peter, James and John did, it will first surprise us, because we never know when the call will come.  But we will also be more likely to answer the call for having seen evidence of God’s work and power in and among this congregation.  And finally, when we recognize that call, we will respond with action because the call of Christ demands nothing less.  “Don’t be afraid, from now on you will catch people.”  May we be so ready to hear the call of Christ, and may we answer so faithfully.

Three points.  And here is your poem, “The Call” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:

I have heard it all my life,

A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper,

Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says:  Wake up, my love.  You are walking asleep.

There’s no safety in that!

Remember what you are, and let this knowing

take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are, and let a deeper knowing

color the shape of your humanness.

There is nowhere to go.  What you are looking for is right here.

Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already

hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen,

no point in the future to get to.

All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.

Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?

Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles.  All this trying.

Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,

faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,

dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.

When it finds you, give your life to it.  Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.

Be one word in the great love poem we are writing together. Amen.