Comments for Jim Other sermons   

            God calls Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. After repeatedly rejecting that call, he finds himself in the belly of a big fish, and finally obeys. And Nineveh is saved. Jesus walks along the shores of Galilee and calls Peter and Andrew, James and John to follow him. And they drop their nets and follow him. Then we have the Apostle Paul calling those who are married to be as if they are not married, those who mourn as if they aren’t in mourning, those who rejoice as if they aren’t, and those dealing with the world, as if they don’t. Why? Because the present form this world is taking is passing away.

            What all these calls have in common are two things: freedom and obedience. They may seem contradictory, but for the Christian they are not. The Gospel always starts with the assumption that we are somehow in bondage. Bondage to what? Bondage to my way of doing things, my agenda (Jonah). Bondage to an unexamined daily routine and set of habits (Peter, Andrew, James, John). Bondage to the form your world is taking – sorrow, joy, family, marriage, commerce, the world as you know it. But world as you know it is passing away.

            The Gospel comes to break the chains of bondage. If we can discern it, particularly in those times of upheaval, the Gospel comes with a call that promises freedom but demands obedience. There is the rub. If we are in bondage, we think we must break out. Beat down the barriers. But our faith teaches that the one thing necessary for freedom is obedience, obedience to God. “Drop what you are doing and follow me.”

            Every now and then someone will ask me what I have learned over the years as a minister. For me a simple and honest answer is that I have learned that a person’s life can change dramatically and profoundly “in the twinkling of an eye.” In an instant, the whole form of your life can change. You name it: a pathology report, a phone call in the night, a left turn in front of oncoming traffic. And your world changes - maybe forever.  Awhile back I visited Joan Boyer at home. One morning on the way to work right before Christmas, she stepped out her front door, and slipped on the ice. Compound fractures of both bones in her lower left leg. Excruciating pain. Six weeks in a cast with no weight on the leg. Just like that. Joan is a very independent and capable person, a widow and mom. Strong and confident. Six weeks in a wheelchair or on a walker. Sitting there sipping tea at her kitchen table, I asked “What have you learned from this experience?” She brightened right up. “I can’t begin to tell you how kind and helpful people have been. I am amazed. I just didn’t know I had so many friends. Somehow I never realized how really caring people could be.” Think about that. We talk about being “bound to a wheelchair” or being “home bound.” But really what we are “bound to” is an image of ourselves as independent, autonomous, self-reliant, and so forth. This is a false image because none of us is that way. It just isn’t reality. Reality is that we are all vulnerable, weak, needy, inadequate and each of us is one misstep from calamity. That is reality. The form your life is taking is going to change.

            We’ve seen this on a massive scale with the natural disasters of 2005. Our friends, the Duroncelay family had their lives turned inside out and upside down by a hurricane. And what an outpouring of help and support from so many individuals and organizations we have seen. Disaster calls its victims out of the predictability of every day life. And it calls those who help out of their everyday lives as well. Victims of misfortune become, in a way, our teachers. Our guides to compassion.

            Does God deliberately send us misfortune as a call (or punishment for that matter?) No, I don’t believe that: whether you are Joan or the Durancelays or Ariel Sharon. Bad things happen to good people, bad people, most people. But does God have the capacity to bring good out of disaster. Yes, I believe that absolutely. And I don’t mean looking for a silver lining or trying to figure out the meaning of what happened or why. In a sense there is no point in asking why. That is useless. There is no point in trying to figure a situation out. But, as terrible as that situation may be, you can trust that God is calling you in and through the experience. Seek to discern and be obedient to that call. There is the possibility of freedom, if we can be obedient to God in the midst of the crisis. To follow Christ is simply to trust where your experience may be leading you. To trust that you are becoming more real. To believe that your suffering, your dislocation, your confusion, may be serving to burn away a false sense of who you are, an illusory view of the world, and an attachment to forms of reality that simply aren’t real. God is working to expose your bondage and lead you to freedom.

            The form of your world is taking is passing away. You are being led, in this moment, into a new world, a new life, a new freedom. Discern that call. Obey that call. Follow the one who is leading you. And all will be well. Amen.

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