"Prepare the Way." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Second Sunday of Advent

"Prepare the Way"

Luke 3:1-6

The time for John the Baptist to come out of the wilderness came in the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius.  Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruling Galilee. Annas and Caiaphas were serving as high priests in the Temple in Jerusalem.  Luke places John in historical context, much like how the Old Testament prophets were introduced, placing him and his call to prepare the way for the Lord in the middle of worldly events and places.

He reminds us that God sends messengers in the center of our earthly life, too. In the second year of the presidency of Donald Trump, when Rick Snyder is Governor of Michigan, when Francis is the Pope in Rome, when J. Herbert Nelson is Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (USA), we are reminded that no time is forsaken by God. All time is subject to God’s inbreaking. Prepare the way of the Lord!

Luke’s litany of government and religious authorities does more than date John’s ministry to 28 or 29 CE. It also contrasts human kingdoms with God’s reign. The claims to any authority that Tiberius or Herod or the high priest make are not ultimate.  God’s people owe allegiance first and foremost to God. And it is God’s word that sets John’s ministry in motion. John has been commissioned to prepare the way not for Caesar or any earthly authority, but for the one true Lord.

           The major focus for Luke is salvation, but it’s important for Luke that we understand the messy reality of the day-- to understand the world into which God is bringing salvation.  The word of God came to John in the wilderness, and spoke through John to a wounded and unjust world. 

            John proclaims a baptism of repentance that leads to release from sins.  The word that’s translated as “release” is the same word that Jesus uses twice in Luke 4 to describe his mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me…to proclaim release to the captives and…to let the oppressed go free….” 

The release that follows repentance doesn’t un-do past sins, but it does unbind people from them. It opens the way for a life lived in God’s service.  When John proclaims this release, he’s fulfilling his father Zechariah’s prophecy:  “You, child…will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness / release of their sins.”[1]

I agree with Judith Jones when she says that this salvation “looks like a new dawn for those trapped in darkness and death’s shadow. It is light that reveals a new path, the way toward peace.[2]         

The second Sunday of Advent invites us to anticipate the drawing close of the holy in our midst. The scripture texts invite us to listen to the voices of those calling us to be prepared to welcome the Messiah.  John the Baptist comes to us, proclaiming the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

            God chooses a nobody—an itinerant preacher to call people to repent and to prepare the way.  John went into all the region around the Jordan River, proclaiming a baptism of repentance.  Luke quotes the prophet  Isaiah:

            “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

            ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

            make his paths straight.

            Every valley shall be filled,

            And every mountain and hill shall be made low,

            And the crooked shall be made straight,

            And the rough ways made smooth;

            And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”[1]

            “All flesh.”  All people.  All humanity. 

Luke quotes Isaiah’s prophecy detailing what is required if all flesh is to see the salvation of God. Make straight desert highways. Valleys will be lifted up, and mountains made low.  

I like the way Jill Duffield describes this:  “A great leveling will occur. Rough places smoothed. Obstacles obliterated. Nothing will stand in the way, obscure or create a stumbling block for the coming of the Lord, for the gift of salvation. No one will be left behind, sacrificed because they are slow or infirm. All flesh shall see the salvation of God.”[3]

            On this second Sunday of Advent in 2018, John the Baptist calls to us to repent…to prepare the way of the Lord. What do we need to do to get ready?

            Whatever it takes will not be easy or painless. Transformation requires radical change, and change brings discomfort. Heeding John’s call means giving up our self-satisfaction or apathy or ambivalence. It means pushing past our fears and resistances, whatever gets in the way of submitting to the re-formation of God.

            Preparing the Lord’s path toward peace requires overturning the world as we know it. Luke’s gospel is full of images that help us envision what that means. Mary sings of the God who has looked upon her humble state, the One who saves by de-throning the powerful and exalting the humble…sending the rich away empty-handed and filling up the hungry.[4] Jesus blesses the poor and the hungry and those who mourn but announces woe for the rich and well-fed.[5]  On the Day of Pentecost Peter warns the people, “Be saved from this crooked generation.”[6] The word that’s translated as “crooked” is the same word that Isaiah uses for the things that need to be straightened out.

            Preparing for God’s arrival means re-thinking systems and structures that we see as normal—but that God judges as oppressive and crooked.  It means preparing to have God humble everything that is proud and self-satisfied in us, and letting God heal and lift up what is broken and beaten down. The claims that the world’s authorities make often conflict with God’s claims. God’s ways are not our ways. But God’s ways lead to salvation.

            What this re-shaping looks like is different from person to person, from congregation to congregation, from community to community, but it does require repentance…turning.  It can shake things up.

            John’s preaching of repentance will literally turn people away from the powers that be to God and it’s a threat to those invested in the present order. When we read further on in the story, we hear that John’s preaching will ultimately lead to his beheading, and later Jesus will be crucified by the empire. Those who are threatened by repentance and forgiveness and newness will not go without a fight.

            In the season of Advent, Christians prepare to celebrate a deep mystery of our faith, the Incarnation, how God came to live among us, full of grace and truth, in the person of Jesus.  Part of what Incarnation means is that God is with humanity and works in and through us. 

            I believe in a God who works in and with and through us, through the work of those who are learning to love as God loves, those who are learning to love peace as God does, those who love justice and mercy as God does.  Through those who are learning to reject violence in their own lives… and who work in small and large ways to end violence and hunger and injustice in our world…. 

            God isn’t finished with us yet. 

            Preparing the Lord’s path toward peace and justice requires changing the world as we know it.  Preparing for God’s arrival means re-thinking systems and structures that we may see as normal but that God condemns as oppressive and crooked.  It means letting God humble everything that is proud and self-satisfied in us,  and letting God heal and lift up what is broken and beaten down. 

            John’s call to repent reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways.[7]  John and Isaiah call us to open ourselves to let God work in our minds and hearts   and to let God work through us to re-shape the world’s social systems. 

            The good news is that God’s ways lead to salvation.  God’s glory will be revealed in Jesus, who comes to save us.  This is good news for us and for the whole world:   all flesh will see God’s salvation.  All humanity will see God’s salvation. 

            Thanks be to God!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 9, 2018

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[1] Luke 1:77

[2] Luke 1:78-79

[3] Jill Duffield, in “Looking Into the Lectionary, 2^nd Sunday of Advent – December 9, 2018” at Presbyterian Outlook.  https://pres-outlook.org/2018/12/2nd-sunday-of-advent-december-9-2018/

[4] Luke 1:52-53

[5] Luke 6:20-26

[6] Acts 2:40

[7] Isaiah 55:8

"It's All About Love." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church, on Good News Sunday.

"It's All About Love"

1 John 4:7-21; Mark 12:28-34

Today is officially Good News Sunday at Littlefield!

            Have you heard some good news today?  In the scripture lessons or in the songs?  [I hope so.  That takes a bit of the pressure off me. Though I’ll do my best.]

            I do believe we have good news to share-- important and life-changing good news.  Sometimes I think I risk sounding like a “broken record.”   Some of you have heard me say this over and over again, in various ways.   But the more I’ve studied the scriptures over the years and looked for the main themes and the big picture, the more I’ve become convinced that our Christian faith is really all about love. 

            God loves us.  We are—all of us-- God’s beloved children.  Our faith is about responding to God’s love for us and for all God’s children by loving God   and loving all the people God loves. 

            The Hebrew Scriptures include a lot of stories and verses that a lot of us find puzzling and troubling.  Yet one of the major themes is of God’s steadfast loving-kindness.

            One of my teachers at Princeton Seminary did her doctoral dissertation on the recurring theme of “hesed”, which is a Hebrew word that can be translated as “mercy,” or “steadfast loving-kindness.”  

            One of the other prominent themes in the Old Testament is how God keeps sending prophets to call people back to living in right relationship with God and neighbor…  and how those right relationships are characterized by love and justice and mercy.

             The gospel message in the New Testament proclaims in various ways how Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth, to embody God’s love for us, and to show us how to live in the way of love.   Jesus preached about the “kingdom of God” or the “reign of God” and how we are called to live into it.      

            When people asked Jesus what the most important commandment is, he said what’s most important is two-fold:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that your neighbor is anybody we encounter, anybody God puts in our path—even people who are different…  people we might even see as enemies. 

            In his last talk with his disciples, Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  People will know you are my followers by the way you love one another.”[1]

            Jesus made it very clear that it’s all about love.  So, I keep wondering how so many people who call themselves “Christians” could be so confused about this.  

            So many people in our society fear and mistrust those who are different:  Muslims…  people whose skin is a different color…  immigrants… refugees.   

            There are so many people in our nation who are hungry or food insecure or lack the basic things they need to live a life of dignity. The gap between the very rich and the poor keeps widening.

            This week, in particular, there has been a national conversation on social media and elsewhere about sexual assault.  Women all around the country have been sharing their stories about being assaulted, and many others have been talking about being “triggered” by recent events and re-experiencing their assaults.

            Our nation is divided by partisan politics, and respect and trust and basic civility seem to be in very short supply. In recent weeks, there have been death threats against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Senator Flake. 

            In the midst of all this brokenness and fear and injustice, how are we-- as people of faith-- called to live?

           

            “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God.  Everyone who loves is born of God    and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God-- for God is love.   Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.    No one has ever seen God.  If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is made complete in us.”[2]

            I hear the scriptures saying that loving one another is a spiritual practice.  As we work at loving one another—God is living in us and working in us and perfecting love in us.

            “There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts out fear.  Whoever fears has not reached maturity in love.”

            We love because God first loved us.   If we say, “I love God” but hate our brother or sister, we’re lying about loving God.   As we heard in First John, “those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen—cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

            Fear divides us.  It leads to violence and destruction.   Hatred and fear are toxic.  They harm us-- as persons and as a society.

            But there is a way out.  It is not the way of fear, and hate and violence.  It is the way of love. 
            In Dr. Martin Luther King’s words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”[3]
            If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we have a long way to go to drive hatred and fear out of our lives and out of our society.  Living in the way of love is not easy.  Living in the way of love is too hard to do on our own power alone.
            And so… we need to be in prayer-- together.   We need to open our lives to God’s call in our lives, as we live further into God’s dream for the world—the world that God so loves.   
            We need each other.  The Greek word ekklesia which we translate as “church” literally means an “assembly,” or those who are gathered together.   We need to come together as a community of faith-- not for the sake of coming to a place called church-- but for the sake of coming together as part of the Body of Christ… for the sake of gathering as disciples who need to learn and practice living in the way of love.  
            We need to love one another and encourage one another.  We need to love one another into becoming more and more the beloved children of God we were created to be.   We need to love one another into becoming the beloved community. 
            God isn’t finished with any of us yet.  Our love isn’t yet perfect, and it hasn’t yet cast out all our fears.   But God is still working in and among and through us, through the power of the Holy Spirit-- leading and empowering us to become more patient and kind and generous… and helping us to become less envious or controlling… less irritable or resentful.  
            God is still working in us, guiding us further into the truth, re-forming us, teaching us what it means to go out and be the church in the world, in this time and place.

            The good news is that as we grow more and more into God’s way of love, God’s love will cast out our fears.

            In a broken and fearful world, we can trust in the Holy Spirit to give us courage to pray without ceasing.[4]   As we work with others for justice, freedom and peace, our lives will be transformed, and together we can change the world.        

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 30, 2018

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[1] John 13:31-35

[2] 1 John 4:7-12

[3] Quoted from Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (1963).  I have read that he first said it in a sermon around 1957.

[4] This is an allusion to the “Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (USA)”, 1990.

"And There He Prayed." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Mark 1:29-39 on the 5th Sunday after Epiphany.

"And There He Prayed"

Mark 1:29-39

Mark’s Gospel moves at a breathless pace. One scene fades quickly into another and then another.  Over the past few weeks, In the sweep of a few verses, we’ve heard how John the Baptist gathers the crowds, preaches “the forgiveness of sins”, and announces the good news. Jesus arrives and is baptized and the heavens split and a voice announces “You are my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

            Jesus announces that the “good news” of God’s reign has already arrived and calls people to repent and believe the good news. Then Jesus calls people to follow him and fish for people, and immediately they followed him.  Then they go to the synagogue in Capernaum on the Sabbath, where the crowds were astounded at the authority of his teaching and his power to cast out demonic powers.

Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the region of Galilee. 

            That’s where we pick up the story today. Today’s gospel lesson can be divided up into four scenes, in two settings.

            Scene 1. As soon as they leave the synagogue, they go to the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, with James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. Jesus heals her, and she’s restored and able to serve.  

            Scene 2.  That evening, they brought all who were sick or possessed with demons to Jesus.  Mark tells us the whole city was gathered around the door.  Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.

            Scene 3. In the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and “there he prayed.”

            Scene 4.  Simon and his companions found Jesus and said, “Everyone is searching for you.” And Jesus answered, “Let’s go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”   And Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

            Jesus’ mission is to proclaim the gospel and cast out demons and bring healing, and that’s what he was doing. People who were sick, hopeless, and desperate came to him because he offered a glimmer of hope in a hopeless and dismal world.

            The demanding crowds came because they wanted something...  because Jesus had what they wanted most...   what they couldn’t find anywhere else-- health of mind and body.  Wholeness.  They came for his healing touch.

            The demand of the crowd upon Jesus' life was great.  So much so that "in the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place to pray.

            Jesus realized he couldn't give out to others anymore.  As I was working on this passage, I remembered the instructions you get when you fly, about the oxygen masks that drop down in emergency situations.  If I were flying with a child or an elderly relative or anyone needing assistance, my first instinct would be to take care of them first.  But the flight attendants caution you to put on your own oxygen mask first.  Otherwise, you could pass out before you have a chance to help anybody else.

            The whole city had been pressing in around the door-- people who were sick or possessed with demons.  Jesus must have been exhausted from ministering to those who were so desperate...  so needy.

            So, Jesus went someplace where he could be alone, away from the cries of the needy, the demands of people, the insistence that he do something. It wasn't that he didn't care about the needs of the people who sought him.  Rather it was a matter of staying connected with God, so that he could maintain a clear sense of purpose.

            How easy it is for our lives to be cluttered with the needs and demands of others.  We find ourselves going in several different directions at one time. 

            Pastors and different kinds of caregivers often deal with people who are possessed by grief or fear or terror that will not let them go.  People are struggling with addictions of various kinds, whether to alcohol or drugs or gambling or work or something else.  People are suffering from mental or physical illness.  Others are confused and agonizing over various issues. Some or desperately lonely.  People are poor...  hungry...  homeless or in woefully inadequate housing.  Everywhere we look, there is such pain...  such need. 

            In our families, our children, even if they're adults, need us.  Elderly parents and other relatives need our care.

            Such need.  Such busy-ness.

            Sometimes I wonder if we think we are the busiest people who ever lived on the face of the earth.  We end up doing a lot of things, but sometimes we wonder why we don’t have more of a sense of fulfillment or accomplishment.  We might feel overwhelmed…or find ourselves on the edge of burnout. 

            As someone pointed out, burnout isn't the result of too much activity.  It's the result of the wrong kind of activity.  Or it can be from how we approach it.  Instead of energizing and building us up, it can wear us down and sap our energy. 

            When I read the gospels, I get the impression that Jesus couldn't have been much busier if he’d had a smart phone.  Yet, in spite of his busyness and the nonstop demands on his time, Jesus knew he needed time to get away and put things in perspective...and to gain a clear understanding of God and God's purpose. 

            When we read through the gospels, we discover that there’s a pattern in Jesus’ life. He worshipped regularly with his community of faith, and he got away regularly for time alone to pray. This is how he stayed centered in God’s love and purpose and found balance in his life.

            If Jesus needed to do this, how much more do we need to do it?

            Yes, we're busy.  So busy.   But when we find ourselves feeling too busy to worship and pray, we need to ask ourselves-- are we busy doing the wrong things?  The images in the gospel story remind us that we need to do what Jesus did-- get away and spend time in prayer...  meditate...  and seek God's will.

            So often, over the years, I’ve heard myself saying, “When things calm down, then I'll have some time alone.  I'll have more time to pray and meditate."  (Although I'm happy to report that I hear myself saying it less than I used to.)

            In recent years, I’ve made it a priority to make a silent retreat. I find a time in my schedule when I can be away for a few days and call the retreat center to see if they can accommodate me. I pack up whatever work and reading I want to take, and food, and drive to Gilchrist. While I’m there, I have to walk over toward the office to get a cell signal. There’s no TV or radio. Just my playlists on my phone so I can listen to music from Taizé or Iona or other meditative music. I structure my day around simple meals, work, long walks, reading, and prayer.  Sometimes I go for several days without talking to anyone.  “And there, I pray.”

            Jesus knew it would never calm down.  He couldn't wait for that to happen.  He set time aside to spend in prayer and meditation, very intentionally. 

            "In the morning while it was still very dark."  This sounds like something I learned when I had a young child:  the only quiet time parents have is after the children go to bed at night   or early in the morning before they wake up.  That's when I got in the habit of staying up late to read and have my quiet time. 

            We need to be intentional in planning our quiet time.  Some folk find quiet time in their cars-- away from telephones and interruptions-- by turning off their radios and cell phones.  One or two of you have shared with me that you pray for others while you're commuting to work.  Others find quiet time when they walk...  or in the garden, as I do.  

            Why is this time apart so important?

            Look what happens here.  Just as we are likely to get interrupted by a child running into the room or the clock striking or the telephone ringing, Jesus' followers who were hunting for him find him and say, "Everyone is looking for you!"

            Some of us are in positions--in work or family life-- where someone always has something more for us to do. If we don’t learn to stop and discern and to occasionally say “No,” we’ll always be piling on more and more things to do.

            Sometimes, if we’re honest with ourselves, we need to admit that it feels good to be so busy and sought after. We might feel a swell of pride rising:  "Look at me!  I'm important!  I'm needed!  They love me."

            We run from sunup to sundown.  Chasing and being chased by responsibilities and expectations.  Sometimes it can feel as if we're possessed by all the responsibilities and by our need to be the important caregiver and achiever.

            This morning we come to the table of our Lord.  The pace is slowed.  It can be for us a moment of withdrawal...   a time to catch your breath.  A moment to reflect upon the bread, the body of Christ...    and the cup, the blood of Christ.  A time for our spirits to be fed!   A time for us to accept Christ's healing touch in our lives.

            God's love for us at this moment becomes so visible...  so personal...  so close...  and so reassuring.  We come to the Table, and God through Christ again offers God’s very self to us.

            This is my body, broken for you...

            This is my blood-- for you...

            Let us taste, and see that the Lord is good!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

February 4, 2018

"A Sense of Urgency." A sermon on Mark 1:14-21 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Epiphany.

"A Sense of Urgency"

Mark 1:14-20

            What would make you drop everything and pursue a whole new life?  A great job offer? An educational opportunity? The chance to make a difference?
            Can you imagine picking up and leaving everything to follow Jesus?  I think, if we’re honest, most of us would find it really hard to leave work and family and friends and everything that’s familiar and safe to venture out into an unknown, uncertain future.

            Right after Jesus' baptism, the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.  Then, after John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.  Repent, and believe in the good news.”

            Turn.   Change.  Come and be a part of the kingdom. 

            Jesus’ time has come, but he needs help.  He’s passing along the Sea of Galilee, and he sees Simon and his brother Andrew casting a fishing net into the sea.   He says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”  Just like that. Immediately.  

            A little further on, Jesus sees James and John in their boat, mending their fishing nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father in the boat with the hired men, and they followed him.

            Jesus sees some ordinary people working at their ordinary jobs, and he enlists them to help in his mission.  The way Mark tells it, they don’t seem to agonize over the decision.  Immediately, they leave their nets on the shore, say good-bye to their families, and they take off with this strangely compelling itinerant preacher who tells them of Good News and a new way of life and calls them to help him bring in the kingdom of God.

            Follow me, and I’ll make you fishers of people.

            Now, that would be a different kind of fishing for them.   It would mean casting out nets to gather people in to be part of God’s kingdom. The kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed is manifest when human beings embrace God’s rule through repentance and faithful living, about a total re-orientation of our lives. 

            When Jesus called the Galilean fishermen to discipleship, he didn’t just ask them to add one more task to their busy lives.  He calls disciples into new ways of being… a new identity… a new way of living their lives in the world.  Jesus calls each of us to repent—to open ourselves to transformation of our relationships, work situations, social commitments, and political allegiances and our church communities.  
            We may not all be called to leave our occupations and families and homes behind. But all of us are called to look at our own lives through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ and allow them to be shaped and transformed by the values of the kingdom of heaven.
            Every Christian has a calling—a vocation to serve Christ wholeheartedly in whatever occupation, or network of family relationships or context in which we have been planted.

            Jesus called Simon Peter and Andrew and James and John by name, but he didn’t call them to be individual disciples.  He called them together to form the basis of a new community.   The little band of disciples formed a community right from the very beginning – they were already becoming the church.

            The community the New Testament calls, in the Greek, ecclesia, literally means “called out.”  The church is a called-out community whose purpose is to exhibit the kingdom of God to the world."   We, the church of Jesus Christ, all of us, are the "called out" people of God.

            Peter, Andrew, James and John were not called just to hang with Jesus and enjoy his company.  The church today isn’t called together to enjoy each other’s company and be comfortable together.   A congregation that’s focused only on its inner life and on survival has forgotten why it exists. 

            You may have heard the parable of the little life-saving station, but I think it bears repeating.  On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was a once a crude little life-saving station.  The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. With no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

            Many lives were saved by this little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who had been rescued, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.

            Some of the new members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped.  They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those who were rescued from the sea.

            So, they built a bigger building and replaced the emergency cots with beds and got nicer furniture.  Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they re-decorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.

            In time, there were less of the members who were interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work. The mission of life-saving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.

            About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had dark skin. Some of them spoke strange languages. The beautiful new club quickly showed signs of damage and wear-and-tear from all the people. So, the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

            At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities and focus on their comfortable club activities with each other. Some members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all the various kinds of people who were being shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. And so they did.

            As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded.

            If you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.  Shipwrecks are still frequent in those dangerous waters, only now most of the people drown.

            We have a mission in the world. As theologian Emil Brunner said, "The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning."

            For the first disciples, it was costly to follow Jesus.  Jesus and his gospel challenged a lot of their understandings about family and society--even about faith. It threatened the systems of privilege, patronage, and loyalty to the emperor.  All of the values and institutions that seemed to be fixed realities were called into question by the Christian vision of a new way of being in the world--a world in which there would no longer be "slave or free, Jew or Gentile, male or female, because all are one in Christ Jesus."[1]

            Jesus calls us, and the call challenges our center of gravity and wants to shift it from being centered on ourselves to God’s call—God’s dream for us and God’s world. It can be a real adventure in faith.
            In Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf urges the hobbit Frodo Baggins to leave behind his comfortable existence and set out on a quest.  Frodo resists, saying, “We are plain quiet folk, and I have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, and uncomfortable things.” ` If you’ve read the books or seen the movies you know that Frodo does leave his comfortable hobbit hole and goes on a great adventure, and it changes his life completely.

            Some of the financial and other challenges this congregation has faced over the past few years threw us off center for a while.  It’s easy to get so thrown off-center that we could forget why we exist, turn inward, and focus on survival.   That’s why we’ve spent time over the past few years working on our mission statement and core values.  That’s why we need to keep discerning God’s will for us.

            Jesus calls us to follow him.  So, we need to be praying for God’s guidance and power.  Pray for the courage we need to look at our context and challenges and possibilities.  Pray that we will trust in God to provide whatever it is we need, as we cast out the net of God's love and bring in those who need to know God's love and acceptance and healing. 

            Pray for our leaders, that they will be strengthened to lead the congregation with love and energy and imagination.   Pray that this community will be energized to deal with the kind of changes we need to make in order to go fishing with Jesus.         

                         

            Have you heard the good news?  The kingdom of God is near.    Jesus calls ordinary people like you and me to help bring in those who are sick and afflicted, those who need to hear the good news. 

            Follow me, Jesus says.  Follow me.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 21, 201

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[1] Galatians 3:28