Living Life on God's Terms Romans 8:1-5

Life has a way of changing, sometimes so rapidly that it’s hard for us to keep up. Did you ever wonder as society and culture bring enormous changes economically and socially change into our lives just what your faith response is supposed to be? Where is my place in all of this change? Where is God in all of this? How do we hang on to the important spiritual aspects of our faith but allow almost overwhelming changes to enter in our lives without destroying our faith? What can we do or not do to assure our relationship with God is a good one?

I'm sure the First Century Christians in Rome had many of the same questions that you and I do today. Society was rapidly changing for them, too. Then they get a letter from Preacher Paul that tells them that we all, even Paul, are confused about what is God's will for our lives and that we often fall far short of achieving anything near our goal in faithful matters or actions.

"Good news," Paul says. We don't have to do anything to make sure that we are all right with God, because God has already done that for us through Jesus, God's Child, who came into the world to share with us God's incredible Love and Acceptance.

Listen carefully! Whenever you are down on yourself because you think you have failed God or family or friends or yourself, stop and read what Paul says in the first verse of chapter 8: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!"

Get it? You don't have to feel guilty or depressed because you couldn't live up to the expectations you thought God, friends, family, or you had for yourself. God loves and accepts you exactly the way that you are...warts and all. God loves you and me so much that God forgives us, forgets what we've done to keep God away, embraces us and includes us in God's family giving us the same inheritance as our Big Brother Jesus.

The fact is that though we don’t want to sin, that is do those things that separate us from God, we still do them. We then feel guilty because we couldn’t stop ourselves. In chapter 8 of Romans Paul describes the Christian life as feeling stuck between knowing what to do and not being able to do it. Sometimes it is very difficult to choose the right thing to do, knowing that others will have very strong opinions about our choices and may in fact accuse us of sinning because we did in fact choose the right thing which in their opinion was the wrong thing. You ever ask yourself that question, “How can I be right and still be wrong?” Life is very confusing.

Then in the midst of our confusion along comes Preacher Paul and tells us: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” Did you hear that? No condemnation! None! Not now! Not in the future! Not ever! Why? Because God loves you enough to forgive you, to restore you to a full loving relationship with God just like the Father welcomed back the Prodigal Son when he came back home.

That, Paul says, is exactly why Jesus came into our world. Not to show us how we must live in order to receive God’s love. Not to satisfy some weird sense of ancient justice that makes it possible for God to love us only if Christ’s blood is shed. And most definitely not to demand that Jesus be tortured and brutalized so that you and I can feel both guilty and grateful for his sacrifice.

No Jesus came to show us through his life and love how much God already loves us. His example was so extremely out of step with what his ancient society thought was right that they killed him. But through his resurrection we found out that God’s love is more powerful than anything, more powerful than death, more powerful than our sin, more powerful than our confusion and guilt.

That last part is probably the toughest for us to understand and accept: No matter how many times we are told that we’re forgiven, no matter how bravely we act, I believe it’d be a good bet that we all live quiet lives of desperation. What is it about your own life that your regret? What happened to you that you can’t quiet seem to get over? What did you do years ago that you still kick yourself about? Are you and another person at odds with each other? Maybe it’s an old lover, a parent, a sibling, a co-worker?

When I talk with people as their pastor there always seems to be one thing in their life that they regret happening and can’t seem to bring themselves to forgive themselves for, or to move forward in their life because of that past. Even when I’ve worked with someone for months, sometimes years, and I think that they have made progress toward forgiving themselves and moving on, I discover that they are still hurting and haven’t yet found a way to forgive themselves or another.

You’ve got two blank pieces of paper in your bulletin this morning. I want you to use one of those papers to write down that one regret, that one bitter moment, that one broken relationship, that failed attempt in your life to get right with God or another. What is it that keeps you from claiming God’s promises in your life? Take just a moment and write something down.

Now I want you to hear Paul’s words one more time: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” Get it? No matter what you have done, no matter what others may have told you previously, no matter what you think you believed before today, GOD IS NOT ANGRY WITH YOU! God loves you, forgives you, accepts you just as you are and sets you free to live a life of meaning, purpose, grace and gratitude.

During communion this morning. I want you to take that piece of paper and toss it into this garbage pail. Throw away your regrets, toss out your failures, get rid of all the ancient history that keeps you from claiming God’s love and acceptance for you. I don’t care what it is, God doesn’t care what it is, just get rid of it. Stop letting it have control over your life. Stop wearing your shame and confusion like some snail shell you have to carry around with you everywhere you go. Take it off. Take it all off! Do your own strip-tease this morning and get rid of anything and everything that keeps you from having a real and right relationship with God. As you throw that piece of paper away this morning say to yourself: “There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”

Let’s practice saying it together, There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” Now you say it: “There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”

When you have finished communion, go back to your seat and take out the second piece of paper and write down what it is that you are now free to do or become because you no longer have that threat of inadequacy and condemnation, of shame and regret hanging over you. What might you dare to do? What challenge will you accept? What act of courage or generosity might you attempt because you know that you are beloved by God whether you succeed or fail?

Then I want you to put that piece of paper in your wallet or your purse and take it with you this week as a living remembrance of God’s promise to be with you and to empower you with God’s Spirit to share God’s love with others you come into contact with at home, at work, at play.

One pastor reports that a neighbor has a sign on his front door that reads: “Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.” My question to you today is this: “Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life now that there is no condemnation. What will you do now that you are free? What will you do with all the love and grace that God can give you? What will you do….?”

Gender Bending with Jesus, Luke 7:36 to 8:3, Proper 6C

Jesus’ ministry was all about building the New Community of God usually referred to by him as the reign of God or the kingdom of God. A community where everyone was welcome and loved, respected and appreciated, wanted and included. His attempts to bring all of the people living on the edges of society into the Community he was building was one of the major sources of his conflict with the religious authorities of his day, and through them with the Roman officials who ruled over the known world at that time.

Jesus went about bending the accepted religious rules and expectations almost to the breaking point. His demonstration of acceptance of the lame, the widow, the orphans, the rejects of society, those cast out due to illness or injury, and those cast out due to their being perceived as unclean and sinful was more than the religious leaders of his day could stomach. The way that Jesus bent their carefully structured society which had been developed to keep out those who didn’t live up to the expectations of those religious leaders caused them to reject Jesus and eventually demand his death.

Today’s story may sound familiar to you. During Lent we read about how the sister of Lazarus, Mary, did exactly the same thing as the woman in this story does for Jesus. In fact, there are four very different versions in the gospels of women washing Jesus’ feet with their tears, drying his feet with their hair, and anointing him with expensive oil or perfume. Did these kinds of things happen to Jesus all the time, or is there something going on here that we need to think about? I have told you several times that these stories of Jesus are collections of remembrances that were finally written down a very long time after Jesus lived, some of them more than 60 years later, two or three or more generations after Jesus walked the earth. Each author of the gospels wrote his remembrances for a different community and for different reasons and therefore took the collections of stories and wrote them with a creative purpose to explain the meaning of Jesus’ life and teachings. These are not factual blow by blow descriptions of exactly what happened to Jesus as he traveled around the country from Nazareth to Galilee to Capernaum to Jerusalem. Three of the books cover less than a year in the life of Jesus sometimes as short as six months, the fourth gospel talks about three years of his ministry. That’s one of the reasons you can’t read these stories as literally true, even though they are very spiritually true. The stories were written to help us understand the truth about Christ and his teachings without being factually true themselves. That wasn’t a problem for those who first heard these stories, and it shouldn’t be a problem for us today.

In the case of the story of a woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and anoints him with precious oils we have four versions of what may have been only one event, but the event was so significant that it is told four different ways all of them emphasizing some aspect of the story that the other three do not.

Today’s reading is a very special case in point as we are introduced to a woman of the city, a phrase used to often refer to a prostitute, but could have been used to refer to any woman that was being forced by economics and social status into an undesirable kind of work, or work that others believed made her ritually unclean. It could have been being a midwife, especially a midwife that took care of Gentile women. That would have made her unclean because she would have come into contact with blood. It could have been that this woman has a job in a tanning firm handling dead animals or even as simple as dyeing clothing, also a job looked upon as somehow unclean. Whatever her situation, the fact is that she probably had no choice about what she was forced into doing. Perhaps she was a widow raising children who was forced into prostitution because it offered her the only way to economically take care of her children. Being crippled or having a disease or illness could also have been among the reasons for her being thought of as unclean. Whatever her situation the author of today’s passage tells us that the reasons for her being thought of as unclean were very numerous.

Last week we saw how Jesus restored economically and socially a widow whose only son had died. By bringing her son back to life Jesus gave her back her own life, too. Do you remember that the passage said that Jesus saw the woman and had compassion upon her? Throughout the gospel of Luke we observe Jesus often seeing persons that others overlook, and telling others to really look at each other with compassion and love, to really see the other as he or she is and stop looking at just their circumstances or their perceived sinfulness. Behind every circumstance is a reason or a story that needs to be told and understood in order to truthfully give the kind of help and hope that another needs in his or her life.

I’m privy to lots of information about other people that many of you will never know. People tell me about their lives and I have to keep that information private unless they allow me to share it with you in the form of a prayer request. Often you ask me what’s going on in another person’s life usually by asking me why that person hasn’t been in church. I usually respond by telling you to call them or email them and ask them yourself in the hopes that you will begin to build a caring, hopeful relationship with them. But the fact remains that many people aren’t in church today because of problems and circumstances in their own lives that prevent them from coming to church: illness, work, broken relationships, depression, lack of funds for gasoline for their car or a bus ticket, and many more reasons. We often fail to ‘really see’ those who are not in church because we haven’t gone out of our way to relate to them like Jesus wants us to relate to each other within this New Community of God we call Emerald City Metropolitan Community Church.

Don’t misunderstand me. Sometimes you and I do get it right. Sometimes we do see the other person just as God sees him or her and we give them our love and our help, our encouragement and hope and we change their lives for the better and they are thankful to us for that. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will come back and worship with us. We don’t give love and care to others so that we will get something out of it. And that’s part of the main understanding we should get from today’s gospel story. We give love and care to others because that is who we are and what we do because of our relationship with God. Loving and caring for others is a natural outcome of our having received love and care from God.

On this particular day Jesus has accepted a dinner invitation to Simon’s home. They are reclining at the table with their feet pointed away from the table as was the custom of that day. Jesus is probably reclining next to Simon. Somehow, it isn’t explained, a woman of street comes into the dinner and stands or sits at Jesus’ feet whereupon she begins to cry profusely, uses her tears to wash his feet, then lets down her hair, something a married woman would never do in public, dries his feet with her hair perhaps because it was the only thing she had to do it with, and then taking the expensive perfume she has brought in an equally expensive bottle and begins to sensuously massage his feet. And all this time she is constantly kissing his feet. This is a very sexually charged picture even though no sex happens.

Simon, and probably all the male religious leaders present, are appalled and shocked at the inappropriateness of this woman’s actions. If Jesus were truly a prophet he would know that this woman is a sinner and he would not let her touch him and make him unclean with her un-cleanliness. Or that’s what they are thinking. Jesus knows this. Jesus is very tuned into his society and how people think. That’s what makes him such a good teacher, because he uses their own thoughts and feelings to teach them new lessons they might not learn any other way except by having their expectations and their rules and regulations called into question.

Jesus turns to Simon and tells him a parable about two debtors. One man owes almost two years worth of salary to the moneylender. The other owes about two months of his salary to the moneylender. Neither can pay the debt. The money lender has a choice. He can send the men to prison until their families pay off the debt for them or he can forgive them their debt. Unbelievably the money lender in the parable forgives their debts completely. They owe him nothing. They are no longer indebted to him. Then Jesus asks his host Simon which of the men would love the moneylender the most?

I was struck by the question when I first read it. What’s love got to do with it? I had to think about that for awhile. What is love? Appreciation of another that makes my life better than it would be without them. Thanksgiving for what the blessings the other brings to the relationship. Joy at how the other person relates to you and you to them. Appreciation, thanksgiving, and joy. Yeah, which of the two men loves the moneylender the most?

Can’t you just hear Simon reluctantly answering the question, sort of knowing where Jesus is going with this parable but not wanting to admit it, “Well, I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”

Right you are, Simon! But tell me Simon, do you really see this woman, do you know and understand who she is, what her life is like, why she has been forced into the life she has accepted which you find so objectionable?

Listen, dear friends, it makes all the difference in the world when you understand another person’s situation, how they got there, why they are still there, what they are trying to do to change that situation for the better. We’re too quick to condemn other people. We blame the victim instead of asking why society can’t change so that there are fewer victims. Jesus calls into question his society and how it treats such persons as this woman. Jesus is asking Simon to truly see this woman and her situation; especially why she is extravagantly pouring out an expression of love toward Jesus. Why is she doing what she is doing? Think about it Simon.

I’d like to think, that Jesus, lovingly and tenderly, begins to explain things to Simon. When he came into Simon’s home Simon refused to take upon himself the expected role of the male host and have Jesus’ feet washed, a customary gift of host to guest in their society. Simon could have had a servant do this, but he didn’t. Why? For the same reason we often refuse to shake another person’s hand when because we want them to know we don’t accept them. Have you ever avoided someone during our passing of the peace? You know, run around the other way so you didn’t have to shake their hand or heaven forbid hug them.

But that’s not all that Simon refused to do. Simon also refused to give Jesus the customary kiss of greeting that men in that society gave to each other. Much like you or I would refuse to give a kiss of greeting to someone at a family reunion because of a long held hostility toward them.

Not only that, but if an honored guest came to your home in that day you might have had a prayer said for them while their head was anointed with oil, much like we do for those who want anointing and a prayer for healing in our communion. Such was an extreme honor and told how very much you honored the other person.

But Simon refused to do all of those things for Jesus. Simon refused to take the role of a male host and give to Jesus what was due Jesus. Simon failed to live up to his gender role expectations.

But, there was someone who did do for Jesus that day what Simon refused to do. It was the woman from the city, the street lady, who did for Jesus what Simon refused to do, she washed his feet with her copious tears, dried them with her long hair thus transforming a sign of public inappropriateness into a sign of respect and love and care. But she didn’t stop there. She kissed his feet and according to the scripture didn’t stop kissing them. Simon refused to give Jesus an ordinary kiss of greeting, but this woman is profusely kissing him, greeting him, welcoming him into her life.

Simon refused to bless Jesus by anointing him with oil on his head, but this woman pours out an outrageously expensive bottle of perfume and deep massages it into Jesus’ feet, caring for him, blessing him, loving him, sacrificing for him.

This woman takes upon herself the role of a male host and transforms the evening for everyone into something unexpected and glorious if they would only just see it, really see her and what she was doing. Jesus sees it. The author of this gospel sees it. The people who first heard this story read to them saw it. The question is do we see it. More importantly do we understand it. Do we get the lesson that is being taught?

Jesus’ parable and his statements tell us that this woman’s outpouring of love toward Jesus is the result of her having already been forgiven of her many sins. Whatever those sins where, they no longer exist. Her life has been changed by God. She is not the same person that Simon thinks she still is. She is beloved by God and because of God’s love for her she is now abundantly pouring out love for Jesus.

We are often faced with situations in which we are called upon to demonstrate the kind of person we are, the kind of disciple to Christ that we are, the kind of lover of God that we are. What should we do in situations where there is a need, especially when there is something that we can do to help the other person.

Someone gave me a bag of muffins a couple of weeks ago. As I drove home thinking about the muffins and how good they would taste with a cup of coffee I stopped at a corner and there was a man who said, “Can you help me. Anything would help. Whatever you can do. I’m homeless. I have no money. I can’t find work even though I’m looking.” Suddenly I didn’t want the muffins anymore and I gave the man the muffins and the half of a sub sandwich I had just bought. I’ll never forget the smile on that man’s face as he walked away.

I never understood it as a youngster, but my father had a favorite saying in such situations, “If you have to stop and think about what you are going to do, then perhaps you aren’t really a Christian.” I now understand. God’s love and forgiveness to me, should overflow from my life with love and forgiveness, acceptance and welcome, inclusion and hope for others.

Jesus’ followers bent the gender rules of their day almost to the breaking point. Women left their expected gender roles in the home, caring for children, taking care of the family and went on the road with Jesus and the boys. Women were disciples of Christ. Women ministered to others in his name just like the boys did. Women supported the ministry of Jesus out of their own wealth. Women were often the only ones present at critical moments in Christ’s life: at the foot of the cross when the men ran away in fear for their own lives, and in lonely graveyard on a cold dark Easter morning. Jesus made a special resurrection appearance to a woman named Mary. Women were in the upper room when Christ appeared to all of them after his resurrection. Women were at Pentecost when thousands came to faith in a single day and believe me when I tell you that they also preached about their experience with Jesus just like the men did. They couldn’t have done anything else because the spirit of God had filled them to overflowing. Women preached and taught and cared and shared the love of Jesus with the world around them in amazing ways then and now. No matter what our fundamentalist religious friends tell us, women can do it all. In Christ there is no male nor female.

But, the boys bent the gender rules, too. Don’t forget that Christ washed the feet of his own disciples, often cooked for them and may have performed other so-called feminine role expectations in his relationship with them. Jesus and the boys didn’t live up to the gender expectations of their day. They didn’t marry, they didn’t have regular jobs, they took off on a journey of faith following an itinerant preacher around from village to village. Jesus and his followers were gender benders to the extreme in order to achieve the dream of a creating a New Community of Love and Hope of Welcome and Inclusion, of healing and recovery, of social and economic justice for all. In more ways than had ever occurred previously their little band was a society of equals and a place where gender didn’t matter so much as loving others because God first loved them.

The unnamed woman in today’s story demonstrated by her extravagant actions, by her sacrificial love, by her pouring out of an expensive perfume, the very same things that Jesus would do when he faced the threat of violence and refused to return violence but instead demonstrated by his peaceful, extravagant actions a sacrificial love by pouring out of his own life and love for all of us so that you and I might know that God loves us supremely and wants to fill us with God’s kind of love that freely overflows from our lives outward into the lives of everyone else we are in relationship with, no matter who they are. And to achieve that might mean that you and I have to bend the gender rules of our society, too, just like Jesus and his followers did so very long ago.

Second Chances (Lent 3, Year C)

In this week’s passage from Luke 13:1-9 Jesus confronts the question of why bad things happen to good people. In the thinking of ancient cultures a person deserved whatever happened to them, that is, bad things only happened to bad people. If you were a good person, then God would bless you with wealth, health, and happiness. If you were a bad person then God would punish you with bad health, accidents, and you would end up poor and homeless. In other words, blame the victim was the ruling thought of the day.

But Jesus contradicts this kind of thinking by saying that those who do encounter difficulty in their lives are no different from anyone else. But the idea that bad things only happen to bad people still persists in our society today. How often have you heard that anyone who gets HIV/AIDS deserved to get it by their faulty behavior? When I was growing up my parents would quote the following statement whenever I was in trouble, “If the shoe fits, wear it,” or “You made your own bed, now lie in it.” They were basically telling me that whatever had happened to me was my own fault. That wasn’t always true.

When my younger sister was born with facial deformities my parents decided that her handicaps meant that God was punishing them because they didn’t go to church and my father smoked tobacco and drank the occasional beer. Even as a five year old child I couldn’t understand the logic of that kind of thinking and if it was true wondered if God would get back at my parents by doing something horrible to me. My parents did start taking us to church and my dad did stop smoking and drinking any alcohol. But they also stopped playing Rook and cards and wouldn’t let me go to movies thinking that all of these things were somehow so sinful that God would punish them again if they didn’t clean up their lives completely.

We still have that kind of thinking going on in our own minds when someone has trouble in their lives. We ask: “What did they do or not do in order for this to happen to them.” Two hundred people get laid off because a company has economic problems but we ask our friend is one of the 200, “What did you do that they laid you off, too?” Like our friend might have some greater importance or ability than the other 199.

The fact is that we don’t control the future. But I guess I’m also saying that God doesn’t always control our future either. God has established a world where there are consequences to human actions like economic depressions and natural events like earthquakes and hurricanes that have nothing to do with what you and I might decide to do or how we might be living our lives. You cannot always, nor should you even try, to connect a natural event that causes you trouble with God deliberately punishing you in particular. That is a very childish way of relating to God. Grow up and take some advice from Jesus.

Jesus ends this discourse by talking about the fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit and the owner that wants it cut down. However, another person suggests that the tree may need some special attention and that by loosening the soil and adding some good old manure to the soil the tree just might bear fruit. Jesus is saying that God loves us enough to give us another chance, another opportunity to recover from our troubles and begin again. We are so much more important than even a barren fig tree that gets a second chance.

Got trouble in your lives? Don’t blame God or think that God is punishing you. Instead do turn to God for encouragement and God’s presence and power in your life to start all over again. God loves you enough to give you a second chance. It’s at least something to think about.

Leaving It All Behind

Scriptures: Luke 5:1-11 and Isaiah 6:1-8

You are on the beach cleaning your nets and hanging them up to dry. You’ve fished all night long with no results. You’ve been at this occupation for many long years and you know what you are doing. But, still no fish last night. While you are cleaning your gear and hanging out your nets to dry, a popular teacher draws a crowd of people to the beach nearby. The excited people have now almost pushed him out right out into the water. He asks if you can’t let him use your boat as his pulpit and speak to the crowds on the beach that have come to hear him. His voice will carry better over the water to them from your boat. You agree and you launch your boat back into the shallow water.

You listen to his teaching. This isn’t the first time you have met Jesus. You have heard him speak before and you have been impressed by what he says. When he’s finished teaching he challenges you to go fishing one more time. You protest, “We’ve done this all night long with no good results.” He encourages you anyway with his laughing eyes and his gentle, but firm suggestion, “Launch out into the deep water this time.” You sigh and you and your men collect your nets from shore and following his request you launch out in the direction of the deepest part of the waters.

You guide the boat to the location he has pointed out, just to humor him, knowing the results will be no different this time as they had been during the night. You know this water, you know the way the fish live in these waters, and there isn’t anything about this situation that is new to you. Nothing will change, you tell yourself, why it isn’t even the right time of day to be doing this kind of fishing, but you follow his directions anyway, mostly so you can later point out how little he knows about fishing, and how much you do know.

You glance over at him sitting there so relaxed and comfortable, and he winks back at you waving you on toward the deepest part of the waters. You nod your head at him, but you do not smile back. You don’t want to encourage him any further with his ludicrous ideas. Just what does a teacher like him know about fishing? You are the professional. He’s just an amateur. Soon he will understand. You’ll all laugh and then you can go home and get some much needed sleep.

Then something twists within your heart and you think to yourself, “But what if he is right? What if he knows something I don’t know? What if there were fish to catch here? Maybe this won’t be a wasted effort after all. Maybe we won’t go home empty handed. Maybe we’ll have something to sell at the Fish Market today anyway.” For a moment a glimmer of hope captures you, but then long years of experience, and reason and knowledge return and you tell yourself, “No, nothing will change today. Nothing will be different.”

“This is the place,” he finally says to you and so you drop your anchor. “Throw your nets out one more time,” he says smiling and then sits back to watch you work. You go through the same tasks you’ve gone through so many times before, thinking how ridiculous this is and you ask yourself, “Why are we throwing out the nets we just cleaned. It will take us hours to clean them up again and for what? Just to humor the Teacher?” And finally, for no other reason than the fact that the Teacher asked you to do it, you cast your nets into the water one more time.

Surprise! Something’s different this time. Something has changed! Immediately your nets are filled to capacity and beyond, to the point of bursting with teeming schools of fish. You and your workers cannot bring in the haul. Your boat is in imminent danger of capsizing from the overabundance of fish weighing down the net and your boat. You call for another boat nearby to help. The catch is too large even for two boats and both of your boats begin to take on water with the enormous weight of the catch that is far, far greater than you ever thought possible or could have ever dreamed about in your wildest imagination. This will be a fisherman’s story that no one will believe.

You look over at the smiling Teacher. Who is this man, you ask yourself? Exactly how has he caused all of this to happen? There is no question about it. This Jesus must be more than just a Teacher, he must be a holy messenger from God. That is the only explanation your mind can come up with. You may even be in the presence of God. Now you feel so unworthy, so sinful, so out of place with this kind of miracle working power calling into question everything you thought you knew and believed. “Leave me alone, Teacher,” you cry as you fall down before him, “I am not worthy to even be near to you.” Truly a miracle has just happened.

“Don’t be afraid,” the teacher says to you and your two best friends who were in the other boat, “You think two boatloads of fish was a miracle? Why that is nothing compared to what is going to happen! From now on, if you follow me, you’ll be bringing in boatloads of people to the New Community of God.”

Then, comes the second miracle of the day, you and your two friends leave your expensive fishing boats behind, and all of your costly gear and nets, everything that defines you as a professional fisherman, and you go off with the Teacher to become Fishers of Men and Women, growing the New Community of God.

What, you all are asking yourselves? How could they leave behind everything they’ve worked for, everything they’ve accumulated, everything they’ve sacrificed to attain and hold on to all these years. What’s the point of working so hard to provide for yourself if God come into your life one day and ask you to give it all up and begin a new life?

Many of you aren’t any different than Simon Peter. You know what to expect from your life. You have been living life the same way for far too many years. We tend to just keep on doing things the same old way, feeling the same old feelings, complaining about the same old disappointments, arguing the same arguments, missing out on the same opportunities to change, over and over again. We often do very little to change those things about our lives that we don’t like and could change if we wanted to. We become complacent and hopeless that anything about our existence will ever change. To put it bluntly, we end up living in a rut And you know what a rut is don’t you? It’s a grave that’s open on both ends.

And then along comes Jesus. Jesus who smiles and laughs and who wants to stir things up in your life, to get you moving again, to get you thinking and hoping and believing that perhaps your life could be better, or at least different.

We don’t know what Jesus preached about to the people that morning on the beach. But we can surmise something of the lesson by what he did that day. Jesus often taught a principle and then demonstrated that same teaching by what he did. Here we have a demonstration of the abundant blessings that God will and can pour out on God’s people, a boat-sinking abundance of fish where there had been no fish earlier. Perhaps Jesus had been teaching the people about God’s abundant love and grace and how God will have mercy upon everyone, even those that they don’t feel deserve God’s love. But the miracle of fish demonstrates to Peter and James and John that even if you feel unworthy of God’s blessings, God will still pour out those blessings upon you.

Peter is struck by his own unworthiness to receive such a blessing. Peter feels that God has made a mistake by giving this miracle to him, not unlike many of you who don’t believe you deserve God’s blessings in your life for whatever reason you have selected to believe makes you unworthy. But Jesus says to Peter, “Don’t be afraid.” Jesus gives Peter the reassurance that God hasn’t made a mistake, that God has deliberately selected Peter for this honor and this work. It is the kind of reassurance that makes Peter and hopefully you and I willing to listen to what Jesus has to say next. Jesus tells Peter, “That? You think that was a miracle? Just wait until you see what God can do with you if you will walk with God in your life. You won’t believe the miracles that you and God can work together.”

The truth is that you and I often concentrate on the past, on what has been, on what we have done wrong…usually failing to see all the right things we have done right…it’s as if one wrong thing, one sinful decision in our lives, outweighs everything else in our lives and therefore makes us unworthy and unable to follow God or do God’s will.
Let me give you some advice. Get over it! Leave all those feelings behind. Move on. God isn’t concerned about the mistakes you have made in the past. God has already forgiven you for those mistakes. God wants to put God’s power and God’s presence to work in your life today, but you have to be a willing partner in this. You have to decide that you are going to allow God to let you and God make a difference in your life and in the lives of others that you will come into contact with.

The prophet Isaiah had a vision of God when he went to worship in the Temple on the death of his relative the king. Everything seemed hopeless to him. The threat of war, the nasty internal politics of the palace and Temple, the failing economics of the day weighed him down and made him give up hope for the future of himself and his country. But the power and presence of God awed him, much like Jesus awed Peter that day in the boat with a miracle. Isaiah felt inadequate and powerless, sinful and unable to be the kind of servant that God wanted. But God was still there powerful and mighty, holy and present just as God had always been. The facts of human tragedy all around Isaiah made absolutely no difference to the power and presence of God. God demonstrated to Isaiah that the prophet was the exactly the very one God wanted to use and when God said, “Who shall I send and who will go for me?” Isaiah got over himself and forgot about his problems and Isaiah answered God in the affirmative, “Here am I, send me.”

It does you no good to hang on to the past, especially if it negative. God is all about the future. God knows all about your past. God has used it to make you who you are today. Stop dwelling on those things that you’ve done wrong or simply think you’ve done wrong. Quit psychologically kicking yourself in your proverbial ass. God forgives your past. God wants you to claim the miracles that God has waiting for you.

Sure there will still be disappointments from time to time. Sure things won’t always go your way. We live in a world where other people can and do mess things up for us by their own decisions against what God wants, even when we are choosing to go with God. It’s just the kind of world we live in. Jesus had to deal with that, so did Peter, so did Isaiah, so do you and I.

But when you decide to move forward in your life claiming the power and presence that God wants to give to you, you have a resource that others don’t have, that others usually fail to rely upon. Go with God and wait and watch for the miracles to happen, for the open doors of possibilities, for the answers to your questions, for the hope and help that you need to accomplish God’s will and way in your life.

The truth is that when Jesus comes into our lives we need to open ourselves up to the possibility of life-changing, life-shaking miracles, awe-inspiring miracles! When Jesus calls us to become Fishers of Men and Women we may be truly amazed at what God does to cause our small faith community to grow beyond what we ever imagined possible.


When I was a child, people kept telling me that one day I would be a great missionary. Even then, I think they saw something different about me, and not being able to exactly name it…That boy is certainly different…they decided that being different, being QUEER, meant I must be special to God. Well, I’ve got news for them! They were right! I was special to God because I was QUEER! They kept telling that they believed that God had called me and if I would respond that God would send me to some foreign land to preach the good news about Jesus Christ to people who had never heard about Jesus or God.

Isn’t that just like us American Christians? If anyone is to do a great work, then they must do that great work someplace else, as if no great works of God can ever be done where we already live, where we already are. Mother Teresa sent her life serving the poor in India. She once spoke to an American audience saying that Americans are always saying that they wanted to leave their lives here and go to work in India with her. “Stay here, right where you are,” she told them that night, “Love the people God has given you to love. Care for people right where you are.”

Jesus is calling MCC Seattle to throw out the nets of God’s Love and Mercy to those who live and work around us. We are called to share God’s love in all its overflowing, boat-sinking abundance with the QUEER people all around us. There is more than enough forgiveness, more than enough healing, more than enough grace to go around for everyone.

When we partner with God, you and I aren’t responsible for the results, but we are responsible for finding ways to throw out the nets of Love that will bring in those that God has desires to be a part of our growing community. We may have to work in ways that we have never even considered before, unconventional ways of being the church and doing the work of God. We may have to change. We may have to think very differently about what it means to be a church to our Queer Community. It might not end up looking like anything we’ve ever been a part of previously. It might be something new, something miraculous.

We have to strike out into the deep waters, even when we’re tired, even when we’re sure it won’t work. We have to find ways to share God’s love by making the right kinds of choices in our votes, in the giving of our money to causes and organizations that support the creation of God’s new community. We have to r build coalitions of hope and compassion with others to consider the needs of the poor, the homeless, the emotionally disturbed, the elderly, those living with HIv/AIDS. We can’t take care of everyone, but we can take care of someone. And by joining forces with other congregations and groups we can make a real difference in our city and beyond.

Maybe the deep waters also speak of the places we would rather not go, places of discomfort and unfamiliarity where we might get in over our heads. What if you and I were to actually forgive those who has hurt us in the past. What if we were to give up those feelings of being put down and rejected and actually offer to those persons the same kind of forgiveness that God has given to us? What if you and I actually took a clear-headed view of our own personal talents and abilities and stepped forward with excitement and eagerly volunteered to begin to use our skills to help others and to build this New Community of God into the miracle working place that I believe God wants us to become? There is much that needs to be done, but those things won’t happen until more of us decide we are the ones through whom God will make it happen.

This is the season of Epiphany; when we are suppose to be especially aware of the many different ways that God is at work in the world. Hopefully, we will be like Peter and decide that we can’t just go back to our ordinary nets and our ordinary lives trying to deny that this story is about us, and this calling from Christ to be fishers of men and women isn’t our calling. Renita Weems says that the last thing those tired fisherman were expecting was a showing of God’s awesome power right there, at the end of their workday. When Jesus shows up and surprises us with miracles, the next thing you know, our lives will be changed forever. Hopefully, like Peter, we will allow God to transform our lives right where we are. Hopefully, we will begin to make a difference to the lives of those we know and love and live with.

All of us have had life changing experiences with God at one point or another in our lives, some kind of spiritual experience that caused us to realize that God was there and God was with us. What would happen if we let God give us that kind of life-changing experience as a community of faith today? What if we started sharing this life-changing power and presence of God in our lives with our co-workers during coffee breaks this week, over lunch or dinner with friends, or speaking a kind word to a stranger in need on the street? That’s exactly what we should be doing, telling others the good news about what God has done in our lives in such a way that they might find some hope to hold onto that God could do the same thing in their lives for them.

Wait, you say, we already did that. Why we’ve worked at it for almost 38 years with no good results. But the Teacher is calling us to go out into the deep waters of this community one more time and throw out the nets of God’s Love and Mercy one more time. You know I can’t help but I wonder what will happen this time?