Grace to you and peace…
One of my favorite times of the day is bedtime with Micah:
We read the Spark Story Bible. Micah’s fond of requesting the Spark Story Bible by simply asking, “Daddy, ‘Spark’ it up tonight?” (which I think meant something totally different when I was in college)
After reading, we sing a few hymns from the books Jenny Fenner has diligently compiled over the last year. 4 of them now! (narthex)
One that Micah and I sang this week…696 “Jesus Calls Us; o’er the Tumult”. A hymn that I used to sing in church growing up, but have rarely heard in churches ever since…any familiar with it? Well sing a few verses in a bit, but righ now, Gina, would you mind just playing the melody?
Our gospel text is the great story of Jesus calling his disciples. And like every text, Sunday after Sunday, we are invited to put ourselves into the story. Some weeks that can be more complicated: For example, with the very popular prodigal son story, are you the older son or the younger son or the father or the employer or the neighbor? Or another story, are you Zaccheus the wee, little tax man, or are you part of the crowd that despised him? But today, it’s pretty easy, I think to figure out where to insert ourselves in the story because unless any of think you’re Jesus, that would leave us all in the boat with the disciples.
This hymn puts us right in the boat, and I wanted to just go through it, verse by verse and offer a few reflections on each as the sermon.
Vs. 1 –read it
Our hymnal is so full of great theology. And great theology always starts with a well-diagrammed religious sentence, where God or Jesus, in this case, is always the subject and we are the direct object. God loves you. Jesus heals us. God searches for you. Jesus rejoices in finding you. And here: “Jesus calls us”. Then there is the recognition that Jesus doesn’t call us from quiet, undistracted, green-pasture, calm-water life. [pause] Jesus calls us over the tumult, of our life’s wild restless sea. It is hard to see and hear Jesus with so much going on. It’s hard to see and hear Jesus with watches on our wrists and calendars on our phones. And yet that call is steady and calm, and the invitation to follow never ends. We just have to “put some things down” in order to hear it. What are our nets? What’s tying us up?
Vs. 2 –read it
Andrew and his brothers are on the border of the water and the land when Jesus calls. Later we’ll sing a song about Christ coming “down to the lakeshore.” How often, it strikes me, that we find ourselves too, “on the border.” Here in San Diego, we are on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. We are on the border of land and water, mountains and deserts. But even more, how often do we find ourselves on the border of following Jesus or going after a myriad of worldly invitations. Shall we turn and live and love and forgive in the way of Christ’s community…or continue to succumb to the pressures of isolation, self-centeredness and safety-at-all-costs? [Risk-taking at Bethel, St. Louis] Disciples take a huge leap, and we need to be upfront with that in an era of cake-walk Christianity. Following Jesus is not easy.
Vs. 3 –read it
Verse 3 continues on this theme. [Sing] What are idols that are keeping you from “loving Jesus more”? [pause] What do we worship in this “vain world’s golden store”? [pause] The ancient Hebrews worshipped a golden calf statue when they strayed, and that seemed silly, but it always made it pretty easy for me to figure I was good a pretty good Christian, until someone simply asked, “Yes, but what are our golden calves today?” [pause] Money, power, prestige, security, consumption.
Vs. 4 –read it
And now the song shifts from challenging invitations, to comforting reassurances of enduring presence. For whether we choose to follow or not, Jesus is there still. [sing] Jesus is always with us, friends. [Carol A.: “sitting right next to me.”]
Vs. 5 –read it
Same line; now an exclamation point! Jesus us call us, period, that’s it. Exclamation point! And now a prayer: Savior, help us to hear your call. Give our hearts to your obedience.
Our hearts can get awfully troubled and go in all kinds of directions these days. But sisters and brothers in Christ, let the text be the melody that draws you back, back in step with Jesus Christ, the subject of our sentences, who lives to call you by name, gather us in, and holds us together in this place—nurturing us with gifts of love: bread wine story, song, community. At least 3 of our hymns today, I noticed, are soft and melodic, like bedtime songs (this one, “You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore,” and the HOD “Will you come and follow me”), but all their lyrics are powerful summons for us to drop our nets and follow. It’s like Jesus coaxes us, with sweet, gentle music into a life of discipleship. He draws us out of ourselves and into the choppy waters of loving others and reaching out as his own body—not over and against the world—but completely for the world. Christ calls us together, cares for us deeply, and then finally but just as passionately sends us back out to call, invite, serve and serve others. For, as Matthew continually reminds us in his Gospel, to serve and love others is to “serve and love [Jesus] best of all.” [sing] AMEN.
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